


save the space whales

by gilestel



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Rebels, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Canon Continuation, Gen, Grysk (Star Wars), Poaching, Post-Star Wars: Rebels, Space Whales, everything will be contextualized, familiarity with novel!canon is NOT necessary
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:07:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,558
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26015491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gilestel/pseuds/gilestel
Summary: Ezra stumbled, reaching out to balance himself against one of the durasteel struts that anchored the corridor.Distant waves of confusion and distress radiated from the purrgil.  TheChimaerashuddered in their grasp.“We’ve been pulled out of hyperspace,” Thrawn announced grimly.Ezra struggled to understand.  Could they possibly still be in Imperial space?  Had they somehow been caught by an Interdictor cruiser?  And if so...why did the Imperials all look so worried?---The purrgil are guiding Ezra and Thrawn on a path set forward by the Force.  Ezra just never expected it to leadhere....
Comments: 24
Kudos: 68





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Huge shout-out to esmeraladablazingsky for betaing 🖤

The jump to hyperspace, when initiated from atmosphere, did not resemble the familiar elongation of pinpricks of light into starlines. Instead, the hazy, diffuse light that filtered through the smoky sky brightened into a blinding glare that engulfed the bridge of the _Chimaera._ It was as though Lothal’s sun had gone nova and expanded to consume the entire planet. 

As the ship around him faded from view, Ezra struggled to keep the boundaries of the bridge fixed in his mind. It was critical that he keep the atmosphere from rushing out of the shattered transparisteel viewports until he was able to activate the emergency magnetic shield. He focused on the throbbing pain in his shoulder, relying on the sensation to keep him grounded in physical reality.

Slowly, the blinding white resolved itself into the angular gray lines of the interior of an Imperial Star Destroyer. Ezra blinked, attempting to speed up the process. Shards of transparisteel glinted in the ghostly blue light of hyperspace, suspended in midair, their motion arrested alongside the oxygen molecules that Ezra held stationary with the Force. Thrawn was still staring out the shattered viewport, body gone limp in the grasp of the purrgil, seemingly hypnotized by the undulating view before him.

Ezra weighed his options. The pressure differential was becoming increasingly difficult to overcome—he needed to activate the shield _now_. The blaster that Thrawn had shot out of his hand was lying on the floor near his foot. If he could reach it, he could shoot the door controls and free up his good hand. Careful not to let his concentration slip, Ezra edged closer to the blaster.

The movement seemed to have awoken Thrawn from his stupor. The man slowly turned his head to gaze at Ezra. The pale fluorescence of hyperspace reflected eerily off of Thrawn’s blue skin, causing it to appear to glow almost as brightly as his creepy red eyes.

Ezra froze. Although intellectually he knew that Thrawn was fully restrained by the purrgil’s tentacles, he couldn’t prevent the creeping dread that suffused him at the thought that the alien might have some hidden trick up his sleeve.

But his fear was unwarranted.

“The magnetic shield can be activated from the terminal two stations to my right,” Thrawn drawled, his voice not betraying any hint that he was currently at his enemy’s mercy with the vacuum of hyperspace mere centimeters away.

Ezra’s mind raced, searching Thrawn’s face for an ulterior motive. Thrawn merely stared back at him stolidly, one eyebrow slightly raised.

“As I said....whatever happens, happens to both of us.”

Keeping his gaze fixed on Thrawn, Ezra crouched down, right hand reaching blindly for the blaster. For a second, his concentration wavered, and the hiss of pneumatics cut through the blanketing hum of hyperspace as the door to the bridge began to slide open. Ezra startled, and his hold on the atmosphere slipped as well. The hiss of the doors was quickly engulfed in the deafening roar of their precious oxygen outgassing into the vacuum. Thrawn’s calm expression faltered as he was buffeted by the rush of air. Panicked, Ezra snatched up the gun and fired a shot in the direction of the control panel, trusting in the Force to guide his aim. The doors slammed shut again with a resounding _bang_ that was echoed by the clatter of the blaster as Ezra cast it aside. He extended both his arms, struggling to regain his control over the quickly escaping gas.

It felt as though years had elapsed in the few seconds that it took for Ezra to return the wildly swirling shards of transparisteel to their stationary suspension. He took a few deep, steadying breaths, reassuring himself that he had successfully averted suffocation—at least for now.

“Two terminals to the right?” he said, chest heaving slightly, trying to evince a calm he didn't feel.

Thrawn nodded his assent, looking uncharacteristically pale.

Ezra walked slowly forward, arms outstretched, hands trembling. His limbs felt heavy, muscles straining from the psychic exertion. The pain in his shoulder had dulled, almost indistinguishable from the deep ache that permeated his entire body. He hoped the shield was easy to activate; he knew now that he wouldn’t be able to navigate a computer terminal while simultaneously maintaining his control over the Force.

“Tell me what exactly I’ll need to do to activate the magnetic shield,” he commanded Thrawn.

“On the underside of the terminal, there is a transparisteel box. Remove the cover and press the button within. The shields should activate immediately.”

Ezra resisted the urge to let out a sigh of relief. All capital ships were required to have magnetic shield backups for their transparisteel viewports, but their heavy power draw meant that they were rarely wired to activate automatically. If a faulty circuit caused them to turn on in the middle of a firefight, it could spell doom when power was suddenly diverted from essential functions such as weapons or shields. According to Kallus, some Imperial vessels even required clearance codes to bring them online out of fear of potential sabotage. 

Fortunately, it seemed Thrawn recognized the wisdom of having an emergency safety feature _actually be accessible_ in the event of a real emergency. Ezra forced his weary legs to carry him to the terminal Thrawn had indicated. As he felt under the terminal for the box, he caught the glimmer of the transparisteel from the corner of his eye as the fragments began to wobble under his control. He couldn’t maintain his hold over them much longer. Fortunately, the button was exactly where Thrawn had said it would be. Ezra slammed his palm down on it, and the force field flared into existence with an electric hum.

Exhausted, Ezra released his hold on the atmosphere. The shards of transparisteel dropped to the ground in a glittering rain of sharp edges. One sliced across Ezra’s cheek as it fell, but he barely noticed as he slid down the console, utterly spent. He slumped against the bulkhead and rested his forehead against his knees. He closed his eyes, blocking out the glare of hyperspace and the dead, red glow of the emergency lights, and let some of the tension drain from his body. His shoulder was starting to throb again, and now that the initial adrenaline that had carried him through was fading, he had a feeling he wouldn’t be able to lift it. 

The immediate danger past, Ezra let himself sink into the comforting embrace of the Force. His awareness of his physical body shrank as his consciousness expanded outward. Beyond the duristeel walls of the _Chimaera_ and the transparent blue glow of the magnetic shield whorled the hypnotic vortex of hyperspace. Ezra had never quite been able to articulate what hyperspace felt like in the Force. He had expected hyperspace to be an isolating void, a separate dimension populated only by the small crew of the _Ghost_. He hadn’t been prepared for how _alive_ the pulsating blue tunnel had seemed. It felt like a low-grade electrical current running through his mind, activating thought muscles he hadn’t been aware existed. Ezra had mentioned this sensation to Kanan, once, shortly after they had begun their training together. His master had explained that hyperspace was part of the Cosmic Force that permeated all dimensions—not just those of realspace. Ezra hadn’t fully understood it at the time, but now, having followed the loth-wolves through the mysterious portal on Lothal, he thought he might comprehend it a bit better.

Around him, Ezra could sense the massive, alien presence of the purrgil. Their minds felt utterly unlike those of any sentient or creature he had ever encountered, boundlessly complex and yet opaque in such a way that he knew that attempting to decipher their thoughts would be futile unless they took the initiative to impress their desires onto him.

By contrast, the hulking carcass of the _Chimaera_ was an aberration. It sat dead in the Force, its sharp lines slicing a wound through space. The hyperdrive was irreparably offline, the reactor core good for little else but maintaining artificial gravity and life support. Within its metal shell, Ezra could feel pale glimmers of life scattered throughout the decks—far, _far_ fewer than the ship’s complement of forty thousand crewmembers. He tried not to dwell on the implications of that. If he hadn’t acted, it would have cost the lives of over a million residents of Capital City—all civilians, unlike the crew of the _Chimaera,_ who had willingly enlisted their lives in service of the Empire.

It was, Ezra tried to convince himself, a necessary sacrifice. But the echoes of the dead and the dying within the Force rendered the thought hollow.

“Do you have a plan, Bridger?”

Thrawn’s voice cut through the white noise. Ezra felt a headache building in the base of his skull. His hands tightened into fists. How could someone so obviously defeated still sound so _smug_ and collected?

“Just... _shut up_ ,” Ezra ground out through gritted teeth.

Thrawn ignored him.

“Since you were so quick to activate the magnetic shield, I can only assume that you intend to survive this experience. However, you must be aware that with the damage undoubtedly sustained by the power generator, the _Chimaera_ will be unable to support the additional power drain for very long. Before that happens, you will need to dock or abandon the ship.”

Ezra kept his eyes closed and attempted to block out Thrawn’s voice. The pressure in his head continued to grow.

“Surely you know that destroying the controls will not prevent my troopers from accessing the bridge forever. I have no doubt that they are regrouping as we speak. Eventually, they _will_ be able to force open the blast door. What then? Although many of my crew have perished, do you truly believe that, injured as you are, you will be able to fight your way past even a diminished crew of a Star Destroyer to reach the hangar? I notice that you do not have your saber.”

Ezra couldn’t resist taking the bait. “I made it onto the bridge, didn’t I?”

There was a pause as Thrawn contemplated this. 

“True,” he said consideringly. “Clearly I underestimated you, Bridger.”

Ezra fought back a tired, disbelieving snort. If it had taken this long for Thrawn to come to that realization, he was clearly a lot less clever than people thought.

_"Clearly."_

Ezra opened his eyes a sliver and turned his head slightly to sneak a glance at Thrawn. He couldn’t see much of the man. The staticky barrier of the shield was no deterrent to the sinuous arms of the purrgil. They twined around the man's body in a luminal embrace, blocking most of it from view. From his position on the floor, Ezra could really only see Thrawn's silhouette, backlit by the steady glow of hyperspace. That, and his creepy glowing eyes, which contrasted sharply with the dim blue light that suffused the rest of the room. And that eerie red gaze was unerringly fixed on Ezra.

It was a sharply calculating look that would have made Ezra distinctly uncomfortable in any other circumstance. As it was, however, he couldn't bring himself to care.

Perhaps realizing that Ezra had exhausted his supply of energy for sharp retorts, Thrawn fell blessedly silent. Ezra let his eyes slip shut again, pretending that he couldn't still feel Thrawn craning his neck over the restraining arm of the purrgil to continue to stare down at him.

Ezra was on the verge of slipping into unconsciousness, the pain and exhaustion finally overtaking him, when the blast doors began to open with a loud, rending screech.

Ezra was too slow, too tired, too far away to react, and the door opened wide enough for the muzzle of a gun to peek through before he had time to move. Gloved hands followed, widening the gap, and a line of stormtroopers forced their way onto the command deck, blasters raised.

Ezra panicked, one hand—the uninjured one— instinctively reaching out to land on one of the massive tentacles wrapped around the neighboring station. In response, the purrgil limbs came to life. It was as though the _Chimaera_ itself had been transformed into its namesake. It was the chaotic violence of the initial assault all over again. The stormtroopers barely had a chance to get off any shots before tentacles burst through the shields and swept them off their feet and lifted them, struggling, off the ground. They wildly fired their blasters into the air, shots going wide and narrowly missing Thrawn in the confusion. 

Ezra had never had cause to wonder what would happen if a human was violently cast into hyperspace. The stormtroopers’ screams were abruptly cut off as the purrgil yanked them effortlessly through the thin barrier into the abyss of vacuum. Before their limbs had even had time to slow, the purrgil released their hold, and, with a flash of light, the troopers vanished from view as they were torn out of hyperspace.

The remaining troopers hurriedly bunched back against the doors, letting loose as broad a spray of blasterfire as they could manage without risking hitting their commander. But the moving limbs were no easy target, and the few shots that did manage to land seemed to have no effect.

Bursts of energy peppered the air over Ezra’s head, one striking the panel above him, causing it to spark and smoke. His brain fought through the fog of fatigue to realize that the troopers risked disabling the magnetic shield with an errant shot. If the shield went down, they would all be doomed.

Perhaps Thrawn had come to a similar conclusion, because his voice cut sharply through the noise.

" _Hold your fire!"_

To Ezra’s mild surprise, the stormtroopers obeyed immediately, although they kept their blasters raised and pointed warily in the direction of the still-moving tentacles.

“Bridger, call off your beasts,” Thrawn commanded.

Ezra pushed out a wave of calming intention toward the purrgil. They retracted their twisting limbs to within a few feet of the viewport frames, but didn’t still their arms entirely, the sinuous movement evidence of the threat they still had the potential to pose. 

“How do I know your men won’t just shoot me the second I do?” Ezra demanded warily.

“You have my word,” Thrawn said, inclining his head as much as he could within the tight grasp of the purrgil.

Ezra snorted.

“Like I would trust you.”

“I am Chiss. Our word is our guarantee.” He paused. “However, I will also have my men put down their weapons as a show of good faith.”

 _Chiss._ So Thrawn _wasn’t_ just some mutated Pantoran. Not that that told him much. He probed Thrawn’s mind in the Force. It was cold and slippery, the current of thoughts concealed beneath a meter of frozen ice. However, Ezra could sense no deceit, and the Force offered no warnings. It appeared that Thrawn truly intended him no immediate harm.

Ezra jerked his head towards the crew pit. “Toss the cartridges down there.”

Thrawn nodded his assent. To their credit, his troopers obeyed, albeit reluctantly.

When the final power pack had disappeared over the edge, Ezra shut his eyes and extended his consciousness out to the purrgil. The alien mind reached back with a detached sense of curiosity, mildly concerned by Ezra’s brief moment of panicked distress. He attempted to project a message of reassurance, of _danger-passed_. 

The movement of the tentacles calmed as they retreated back out of the ship, resuming their hold on the hull.

An officer pushed through the door past the cluster of stormtroopers. She was a tall woman, with a sturdy build and hard jaw. 

_"Grand Admiral—!"_ ” she said, lurching towards Thrawn. Ezra lifted his head to observe where his enemy still hung suspended a few inches above the ground, back mere inches from hyperspace. It appeared that the purrgil had _not_ released Thrawn during their retreat from the ship. The position could not possibly have been comfortable, but Thrawn’s face betrayed no hint of discomfort.

Thrawn shook his head minutely, stopping the woman a few paces onto the command bridge.

Ezra reluctantly pushed himself off the floor. His shoulder screamed with pain as he used both arms to climb the terminal to leverage himself to his feet. The body of a stormtrooper lay unmoving a few feet away, blaster discarded by his side. Ezra could feel the Imperials’ tense stares upon him as he slowly moved to pick it up.

He walked deliberately towards Thrawn, blaster braced in his good hand, until he could look the man in the eye. He had to crane his neck up to meet Thrawn’s red gaze.

“If you try _anything_ ,” Ezra warned, brandishing the blaster in Thrawn’s face, “I’ll have them toss you into hyperspace.”

“Understood.”

Unwilling to lower the blaster, Ezra angled his body so that he could press a palm to one of the purrgil’s tentacles without lifting his injured arm. _Let go_ , he willed.

Like a blossom unfurling from a bud, the tentacles loosened their grip, unwinding and slithering away to wrap around the durasteel struts that framed the shattered viewports.

Thrawn, for all his previous composure, was unable to maintain control over his legs. He slumped inelegantly to the ground. The officer rushed towards him, concern evident on her face, several troopers close behind her. Ezra stepped back and let her proceed. She helped the grand admiral to his feet. He swayed a bit gingerly, as though still regaining the feeling in his legs.

“Gravesend, Wytt, search the crew pit for survivors,” Thrawn said. He looked over towards Ezra and raised a brow. “With your _permission_ , of course, Bridger.” How Thrawn could tell the troopers apart under their identical white helmets, Ezra had no idea. 

Ezra nodded his assent curtly. He desperately wanted to respond to the subtle sarcasm, but preventing the Imperials from providing aid to the wounded would, well... make him as bad as an Imperial. 

Two stormtroopers immediately broke off from the pack and made their way down the metal stairs into the crew pit.

“Commander Hammerly,” Thrawn continued, “Please retrieve the bridge’s emergency medical kit. Captain Jima, do you have a casualty report?”

"What you see here are all that's left of the bridge crew, sir. The tower sustained heavy damage and has currently cut us off from the rest of the ship. We weren't able to raise them on comms, either."

Thrawn frowned. “Cut off?”

“Half the tower is gone,” Jima clarified grimly. “What remains is structurally unsound. Turbolifts are offline, and the access shafts are blocked by debris. We’re fortunate that the jump to hyperspace suffocated the fires, otherwise we’d be a lot worse off.”

“So it would appear that we are currently confined to the bridge,” Thrawn mused. He turned to address Ezra. "You seemingly are able to exert some level of control over these creatures."

"I just put out a call. The rest was the purrgil. They _really_ don't like Imperials," Ezra said, attempting to disguise his discomfort at becoming the sudden focus of the Imps’ attention. He didn't like how quickly Thrawn had stepped up to reassume command over the situation. It implied a shift in the balance of power aboard the ship in a direction that was less than favorable for Ezra. He wasn't entirely sure what he had been expecting when he had released Thrawn; perhaps that the Imperials would just retreat to a corner to lick their wounds? It seemed a little naive in retrospect. And yet...he had felt no glaring warnings in the Force. Ezra had hoped to have the opportunity to regather his strength and assess the damage to his shoulder, but it seemed that he would have to wait.

“Is our destination not one of your choosing, then?” Thrawn asked.

Ezra shrugged with his good shoulder. “We’re going wherever they want us to go. It’s up to the will of the Force.” That, at least, he was confident of. When he had chosen to take this path, there had been a sense of _rightness_ in the Force, even if he didn’t yet know where it would lead him.

Thrawn turned to gaze out into the blue tunnel of hyperspace, face inscrutable. “Ah, yes. The—” He paused. “— _will_ …of the Force.” His lip curled slightly as he said it.

“Admiral!” A shout came from one of the troopers who had descended into the crew pit. “We’ve found Lieutenant Pyrondi, sir. She’s injured, but alive!”

Thrawn abruptly turned his back to the viewport. “Assemble the wounded in the communications annex. As we currently have no need for our controls, we should endeavor to be on the other side of the blast doors in the event that the magnetic shield fails. Commander Hammerly, I see that you have located the medical supplies. Have anyone with training in field medicine assist you in setting up a triage site.” Hammerly nodded, jerked her head in the direction of two of the troopers, and made her way back through the blast doors, the men close behind her. “Captain Jima,” Thrawn continued,” please accompany me to assess the extent of the damage to the bridge tower.” He strode towards the exit, making as though to leave the bridge.

Ezra let out an aborted sound of protest.

Thrawn paused to glance back at him. “If we are, as you suggest, truly at the mercy of these creatures’ whims, Bridger,” Thrawn said, speaking slowly as though he were talking to a particularly unintelligent child, “we may be travelling through hyperspace for days, if not weeks. While we likely still have access to potable water, the commissary and our supply of rations are all located in the main body of the ship, as is the medbay and all of our advanced medical equipment. While it would not surprise me to learn that you Jedi can slow your metabolisms at will, the rest of us are not so fortunate.”

Ezra felt a little foolish for not having considered that, but there was no way he was admitting that to Thrawn.

“May we?”

Ezra jerked a nod reluctantly. At least he would be spared Thrawn’s insufferable _smugness_ for a time.

Thrawn paused briefly in the communications annex to issue a quiet command to Hammerly before disappearing down the darkened hallway to its left. Ezra was too exhausted to be too concerned about the content of the exchange, although a small corner of his mind whispered that nothing Thrawn was up to could be good. The remaining Imperials all seemed too busy following Thrawn’s orders to pay much attention to him. The two troopers who had accompanied Hammerly had removed their helmets in a flagrant disregard for Imperial regulation and were in the process of spreading out the contents of what must have been the emergency med kit on the holotable. 

The other trooper left on the bridge had rushed over to help Gravesend and Wytt carry an unconscious woman up the stairs. She had brown skin, black hair, and no obvious injuries that Ezra could see, but the fluttering rise and fall of her chest was barely perceptible. Ezra forced himself to look away.

As much as he hated to admit it, Thrawn was right about the blast doors. With no set destination, the magnetic shield was a dangerous drain on the ship’s power reserves. But Ezra wasn’t sure he would be welcome in the makeshift infirmary, and he felt more secure knowing that there was no durasteel barrier separating him from the insurance of the purrgil.

He had just sunk back down to the floor and begun to close his eyes when the sound of boots determinedly hitting the catwalk forced them back open. Hammerly was striding towards him. She stopped directly in front of him, forcing him to crane his neck back at an angle that tugged uncomfortably on his wounded shoulder to see her face. Her dark eyes were narrowed in suspicion.

“The admiral requested that I treat your blaster wound,” she said, her displeasure written all over her face. “I can’t imagine why, but he usually has a good reason. Can you walk?” She didn’t offer a hand to help him up.

“I can walk,” Ezra said. Whether he could _stand_ was another question entirely, but he forced his tired legs to obey. He followed her cautiously down the walkway, the knowledge that he definitely needed medical attention warring with his certainty that Thrawn _must_ have an ulterior motive.

The communications annex was less than ideal as a makeshift infirmary. Hammerly and the two stormtroopers had stripped the jackets off of fallen officers in an attempt to cushion the durasteel floor. Two officers were laid out alongside one trooper, their faces deathly pale in the dim emergency lighting. The two troopers who had removed their helmets were tending to their wounds. To the other side of the room, the still-helmeted troopers were arranging bodies in neat rows. Ezra stared as one of the troopers carried in a corpse from the bridge and added it to the stack. 

Hammerly caught him looking. “If they’re still out there when the shield goes down, they’ll be sucked out into hyperspace during the depressurization. They deserve better than that.”

Ezra had no response. He had never thought about what happened to the bodies of the Imperials who died in space.

“Sit here and remove your shirt,” Hammerly said, gesturing to a section of the room opposite the blast doors. It was spaced equidistant between the living and the dead. Ezra obeyed, forcibly keeping his gaze from straying to the pile of bodies on his left. It turned out that a combination of heat from the blaster bolt and dried blood had fused the fabric of his jacket to the wound. Hammerly had to cut his shirt open. Ezra flinched when she withdrew the knife from a pocket of her uniform; she politely pretended she hadn’t noticed.

“I’m not going to waste bacta on you,” Hammerly informed him, “but I can disinfect and bandage it.”

Ezra drew on the Force to center himself as she worked. _This is nothing compared to what Kanan experienced_ , he reminded himself. _Nothing at all._

“I’m no medic,” Hammerly said at last, jostling Ezra, blinking, out of his meditative state, “but I don’t think you’ll lose the arm.” There was a not-so-subtle “ _unfortunately_ ” hidden beneath her words. “You probably should keep it immobilized if you don’t want permanent damage, though.”

She seemed a little unnerved by his continued silence. The hard edge her voice had maintained throughout the process softened a little. “You okay, kid?”

Ezra nodded.

Seemingly satisfied, Hammerly rose to supervise the other Imperials. 

Ezra was unsure how much time had passed since their departure, but Thrawn and Jima had yet to return from their survey of the tower. Ezra decided there was not much else to do but wait. He let his eyes drift shut, only intending to rest them for a moment, but within seconds, he drifted off to sleep.

* * *

The  _ Farseer _ was a small recon craft posted deep within Imperial space. It was a stealth ship, as it was imperative that the Empire not discover that the Ascendancy had eyes this deep into its territory. Its official mission was to observe and collect information about the movement of people, ships, and military assets within the Empire. More recently, that mandate had expanded to include a survey for any further Grysk incursions into this part of the galaxy. But its  _ un _ official mission was to keep the Aristocra informed of the actions of one Mitth’raw’nuruodo. 

Khoric was the communications officer on duty monitoring Imperial transmissions when the report came through. His blue face faded to the color of ice as his brain finally managed to parse the message. He had to replay the recording twice, not entirely that he had correctly interpreted the Basic words. But there was no mistaking it: twelve hours ago, Grand Admiral Thrawn had disappeared into hyperspace from the nearby system of Lothal. The Imperial Navy was currently listing his status as “Missing, Presumed Dead.”

Khoric almost yanked his headset out of the console in his rush to get to the bridge. It was critical that the  _ Farseer _ depart for the Unknown Regions immediately.

Admiral Ar’alani needed to be informed of Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s disappearance as soon as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw this chapter:  
> \- ezra contemplates the large imperial death toll of the purrgil attack and there is a description of some of the casualties  
> \- there is a description of a man being ejected into hyperspace  
>   
> edit 9/6/20: changed "windows" to "viewports" to maintain convention established in _chaos rising_


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kudos again to esmeraladablazingsky for betaing 🖤
> 
> cw this chapter: wound care, food insecurity/hunger. see end notes for details

Ezra awoke disoriented. He was seated, bare back resting against cold metal. At first, he wondered whether he had somehow managed to roll out of his bunk on the _Ghost_. It happened occasionally, and he usually never even woke up enough to climb back into bed, choosing instead to just curl up on the floor; both he and Zeb could sleep through a firefight—and nearly had, once. But then he recalled that he _wasn’t_ on the _Ghost_. They were back on Lothal, encamped at the ancient settlement in the southern hemisphere, preparing for their liberation of the capital. So then why was he lying on durasteel, not up against the rocky cliff face? 

Slowly the events of the past twenty-four (or was it more, now?) hours came back to him. Pryce. The shield generator. The aerial barrage. The _purrgil._

The room was lit from below by the baseboard emergency lights; main power had yet to come back online. Imperial vessels were never _warm_ , exactly, but the air on the _Chimaera_ was distinctly chilly. A power-saving measure, perhaps? The darkened holoprojector table, which dominated the space, cast deep shadows and blocked most of Ezra's view of the room. The rest of his view was obstructed by the figures who leaned over it, their backs to Ezra. The man in the center towered over the others, his blue hands clasped behind his back. It appeared that while he was sleeping, Thrawn had returned.

"Our current priority is to restore intraship communications and attempt to contact Commodore Faro," Thrawn was saying. "Based on my analysis of the sensor readings we obtained from the hull, it seems likely to me that the senior officer quarters were largely undamaged. There is a high probability that she survived."

Thrawn removed one hand from his back to gesture towards the man on his right. "Captain Jima worked for the Kuat Drive Yards prior to enlisting in the Stormtrooper Corps. Captain, please share your assessment of the tower."

Jima shifted and a blue light flared to life. A datapad, maybe?

"The starboard side is all but destroyed. We're fortunate that the majority of the plumbing lines ran up the port side, or we wouldn't have water in the 'freshers up here. The turbolifts were centrally located and are no longer operable. Our best option is the port maintenance shaft on the side of the tower, here.” He made a tracing gesture with his hand. “It’s mostly used by droids, but there _is_ a ladder that runs down its length. It terminates at the main body of the ship. There are some minor obstructions, but we should be able to clear a path within a few days.” 

The light flickered, as if Jima was swiping forward to a new image.

“Our comms may be down, but we were able to run a systems check from one of the command terminals. Power is down on the port side of the body, but the starboard turbolifts should be online. The only problem is that the corridor we would use to _access_ them from the port maintenance shaft has been caved in by a fragment of the tower hull. It's too heavy to move manually, and I'd caution against using explosives without a more thorough survey of the section’s structural integrity. The _Chimaera’s_ already taken a lot of damage as it is, sir.”

“No...explosives would certainly be unwise,” Thrawn said. There was a moment of silence during which he seemed to be contemplating something. “And yet, let us not forget that we have other resources at our disposal.”

Thrawn turned to face him before Ezra had time to pretend to still be asleep. 

“Ah good. You have awoken, Ezra Bridger.”

Ezra considered closing his eyes anyway.

“Come,” Thrawn said. “Examine our findings.”

“I don’t take orders from you,” Ezra retorted snottily, but he rose anyway. Thrawn, damn him, had been right about the necessity of gaining access to the main body of the ship. Even had food and medical supplies not been a concern, the _Chimaera_ was in no condition to survive an atmospheric reentry. In lieu of a rendezvous with another vessel, the only way off the ship would be a shuttle or an escape pod. It wouldn’t hurt to discover what the Imperials had learned. And, Ezra reminded himself, even if he unblocked the passage, it didn’t mean he had to _leave_ it unblocked for the Imperials to use after him.

His time spent on the floor hunched against a metal wall had done little to relieve his aching muscles. _Eighteen_ , Ezra thought, _is too young to feel this old_. Keeping in mind Hammerly’s warning to keep his bad arm immobilized, Ezra used his right arm and the wall to push himself onto his feet. It was harder than he expected.

None of the Imperials offered him a hand up. (Not that he would have accepted it.)

Standing, he could see that the blast doors had been sealed. Although he could still feel them in the Force if he reached out, Ezra was unprepared for how isolated he felt without the reassurance of the purrgil’s visual proximity. 

At a nod from Thrawn, the Imperials shifted to make a space for Ezra at the holotable. Ezra stepped forward to fill it, suddenly distinctly aware of the fact that he was currently shirtless, wounded, and surrounded on all sides by people who had just willfully committed war crimes. Goosebumps prickled over his skin, not entirely just from the chill air. He hunched inwards uncomfortably, not wanting to brush bare shoulders with Thrawn on his left or Jima on his right.

Resting on the black surface of the unlit holotable was a datapad that seemed to be wired to some sort of scanning array. On the screen glowed what looked to be architectural blueprints of a Star Destroyer.

“Captain Hammerly and Sergeant Wytt were able to...I believe the word in Basic is ' _jerry-rig'_ ...a scanning device so that we would be able to determine the structural damage to the tower and other sections of the _Chimaera_ ,” Thrawn explained. He gestured to a place on the ship’s hull slightly left of the bridge tower. “While we believe that most of the debris can, with time, be manually cleared from our path, in this section of Deck Twenty-Eight, a large piece of the hull plating has collapsed inward, entirely blocking access to the corridor. It is too thick to be cut through by a modified blaster, too heavy to move without mechanical assistance, and the surrounding area is too structurally unsound to risk detonating explosives.”

“Additionally, due to the hull breach, that section of the corridor will have depressurized,” Jima added. “And we lack the equipment necessary for any long term exposure to vacuum.”

“It is my understanding that the Force is capable of moving large, heavy objects with a degree of delicacy,” Thrawn said, looking towards Ezra for confirmation.

Ezra thought about Thrawn sifting through the wreckage of the temple on Lothal, “analyzing” the artwork within and desecrating it with his calculating red gaze. Perhaps he had even been granted access to whatever remained of the archives of the Jedi on Coruscant and had looked at the last remaining artifacts of the Jedi culture, coldly uncaring of the blood with which they were stained. Thrawn’s “understanding” of the Force would always be incomplete; no one who viewed the world with such detachment could ever truly understand the vast interconnectedness that was the Force.

“Sometimes,” Ezra said. “Depends on how big.”

“At least twenty by twenty meters, and over a meter thick,” Jima said. “Think you could move it?”

 _Karabast_. That actually _was_ large.

Ezra grimaced. “I can probably do it, but not with my arm like this.” He pointed at the bandage that crisscrossed over his chest and around his shoulder. “I don’t think I can lift it right now,” he admitted reluctantly.

The trooper standing to Jima’s right frowned. “I thought the Force was—” he wiggled his fingers “—mumbo jumbo spiritual stuff. What d’you need your arm for?”

Ezra almost rolled his eyes. “We don’t just _wave our hands_ and move mountains. Our bodies are physical conduits. If they’re damaged, it affects how we channel the Force.”

The trooper seemed unconvinced, but Ezra didn’t care. “I’m not going to be able to move something that heavy if I can’t use both arms.” In truth, he wouldn’t know unless he tried, but it was better for the Imperials to underestimate him. Of course, if he still had his lightsaber, it would have an easy task to simply slice through the obstruction.

Thrawn was unphased by this pronouncement. “It will take us several days to clear enough debris to access that deck. Level Ten houses a secondary emergency medical kit. If it is capable of being retrieved, your wound will be treated with bacta, as all of the other most urgent medical concerns have been addressed. Is that acceptable?”

Two or three days of rest, and a small bacta patch? It wasn’t ideal, but Ezra knew that, purrgil notwithstanding, it was in his best interest to be of utility to Thrawn. 

It seemed that he took too long considering his response, because before he could reply, Thrawn added, "Our most immediate concern, of course, is lack of food. Without access to adequate nutrition, our bodies may become too weak to perform the labor necessary to clear the maintenance shaft." His red eyes glittered.

“I'll manage," Ezra ground out.

The next few hours were a flurry of activity. Thrawn immediately sent all the able-bodied men to begin clearing the maintenance shaft under the direction of Captain Jima.

Once again, Ezra felt ill at ease with the way that Thrawn effortlessly commanded the movements of his crew. Ezra couldn’t help but feel as though his remaining leverage was slipping away before his very eyes. Now that Ezra had agreed to work with them, Thrawn was ignoring him entirely. He wasn't quite a prisoner, but he was also no longer the one calling the shots. In Ezra’s experience, this was a shift in the balance of power that never ended well.

He had faith in the path that the Force had set him on, but hadn't _Kanan_ followed the will of the Force, too?

Fortunately, it went against Ezra's nature to just sit idly by while things happened around him. One of the first things he did was seek out a new shirt, his own somehow damaged beyond repair when Hammerly cut it off of him. In Ezra's opinion, it had been entirely unnecessary to destroy it so completely, but Hammerly had appeared to take an obscene joy in slicing through the orange fabric. Ezra was smart enough not to voice his objections when there was an Imperial officer holding a literal knife to his back.

As it turned out, finding a new shirt was a surprisingly fraught endeavor. Without access to the laundry, his only options were uniforms that were still currently _on_ their owners’ bodies. Ezra had taken Imperial uniforms off of corpses before, but it seemed somewhat gauche to do it in front of their still-living compatriots. Not that Ezra particularly cared what a bunch of genocidal Imps thought of him, but it would probably be unwise to give the crew of the _Chimaera_ even _more_ reasons to dislike him.

Not one to do things by halves, Ezra marched up to where Thrawn was still studying the datapad.

“Your ship is cold,” he announced. “I need a jacket. One of _those_ jackets.” He pointed over to the pile of bodies. Between the dim lights and low ambient temperature, the morbid collection was surprisingly unobtrusive. “Tell your men not to shoot me.”

Ezra trusted Thrawn to be unsentimental enough not to particularly care if Ezra stripped down one of his deceased crew members. It appeared he had guessed correctly. Thrawn barely looked away from his datapad to drawl, “I am ever impressed by your resourcefulness, Ezra Bridger.” That was as much of a go-ahead as Ezra required.

Ezra had lost most of his squeamishness on the streets, and he had never been particularly superstitious, despite having first-hand experience with souls that lingered after death. As it was, there was nonetheless something unsettling about searching through a pile of dead bodies to find one that matched your own height and build. It was creepy in a _Nightsisters-of-Dathomir_ -sense, not a _Dume-the-Loth-Wolf_ -sense, even though Ezra certainly didn’t expect that any spirits would possess him for borrowing their clothes.

He finally found a jacket that looked like it might fit on the body of a young naval officer. There were no blaster holes or bloodstains on it; the man’s head was cocked at an unnatural angle, neck broken. Ligature marks on his throat indicated that he had been strangled by the purrgil. He didn’t actually bear much physical resemblance to Ezra; his skin was pink, hair blonde, and age lines were already starting to form at the corners of his full-lipped mouth. But as Ezra undid the closures on the man’s jacket, he was struck by a sudden sense of kinship. He couldn’t help but wonder what the officer’s name was, where he came from, and if he really _was_ evil at heart. What led him away from his home to die here, killed by creatures he might not even have recognized from legend?

Ezra wasn’t able to get an undershirt over his injured arm without assistance, and he wasn’t about to ask a stormtrooper for help dressing. With a bit of creativity, he managed to get his good arm into the jacket sleeve and do up the closures far enough that his chest wasn’t completely exposed. He tucked the loose sleeve down the front of the jacket so that it wouldn’t flap around by his side. The olive wool of the jacket itched uncomfortably against his bare skin. He awkwardly looped the officer’s belt around his neck and twisted it to function as a makeshift sling. It didn’t do too much to immobilize his arm, but it did relieve some of the pressure on his shoulder joint. The sleeve of the jacket was a little long, so he ended up rolling up the cuff a few inches.

Ezra was grateful that there weren’t any mirrors in his immediate vicinity.

His second order of business was to take stock of his situation. There were seven stormtroopers who had survived, two officers, and Thrawn. One of the other officers had succumbed to his wounds while Ezra was asleep. Ezra knew that he had taken out a decent number of Imperials on his way up to the bridge, but he had nonetheless encountered fewer than he had expected; Star Destroyers were usually teeming with Imps.

Beyond the communications annex was a long corridor off of which branched various unit command centers, conference rooms, and offices. It was much easier to snoop around a Star Destroyer when you had swiped a code cylinder off the body of a senior officer and its crew were dead, wounded, or down a maintenance shaft. He had already known that Thrawn’s office was located on this level, but so too, Ezra discovered, were his quarters. 

_So much for taking a jacket off a corpse_ , Ezra thought. The blue bastard had _absolutely_ known that he had a closet full of pristine white jackets mere rooms away when he had okayed Ezra to go turning over bodies!

Ezra briefly considered stealing a jacket anyway just to be ornery, but he thought flaunting the fact that he had broken into Thrawn’s bedroom might push the boundaries of whatever fragile truce they appeared to have arrived at. Plus, he didn’t know whether Thrawn still had assassin droids hidden away somewhere.

The bridge tower, intended to be manned in shifts during all hours of the rotation, did not have a diurnal lighting cycle—not that the emergency lights would have followed one, anyway. It made it particularly difficult for Ezra, who had spent the vast majority of his life planetside and was used to the consistency of predictable periods of light and dark, even aboard the _Ghost_ , to judge the passage of time.

By the end of what he assumed to be the first full rotation since they had entered hyperspace, a mattress, presumably taken from Thrawn’s quarters, had been dragged into one of the conference rooms and the two injured crewmen had been moved to lie upon it. They had both since awoken. The female officer seemed to be suffering from the aftereffects of head trauma, and the stormtrooper kept falling back into feverish bouts of sleep, the bacta patch a mere plaster over the deep gash where a falling transparisteel shard had pierced his groin in the gap between armor plates. Ezra had his doubts that the man would survive. The injuries from the attack, with the exception of his own, seemed to be either minor or fatal, without much inbetween. 

Ezra hadn't realized just how used he had gotten to having three square meals a day aboard the Ghost. By what he was pretty certain was lunchtime on the second day, his stomach was already protesting its empty state. There were ‘freshers on the deck that still had running water, so they weren’t in immediate danger of dehydration, but the lack of food would become a problem soon if they couldn’t get the maintenance shaft cleared. Imperials weren’t the sort to keep a stock of refreshments in their conference rooms, and if Thrawn had weird Chiss snacks stashed away in his nightstand, he wasn’t sharing.

The hunger pangs were distressingly familiar. Ezra could feel himself reverting back to a scrawny eight-year-old who had learned to follow loth-cats to the dumpsters with the freshest discarded food at the end of the day. He could survive this; he had done it before. But he had also only managed it by caring for no one but himself, and he didn’t particularly want to be that person again.

"You seem to be handling this pretty well, kid," Hammerly observed. "Even though as a teenage boy you should be twice as hungry as the rest of us."

"When you're seven years old and the Empire disappears your parents," Ezra said, the words coming out with more bitter honesty than he intended, "you get used to going a few days without food."

She didn't try to make small talk again.

For the most part, the Imperials ignored him, which was how Ezra preferred it. They were busy taking shifts doing the heavy labor of moving debris out of the maintenance shaft, and had neither the time nor inclination to socialize with rebel scum.

By the end of the second day, they had managed to clear the way to Level Ten, where, as Thrawn had predicted, there was an additional emergency med kit. Ezra still didn’t fully understand why there wasn’t one on _every_ level, but he guessed that it just went to show that the Empire didn’t care about _anyone—_ even its own soldiers.

As promised, he was allowed to apply the small supply of bacta patches to the blaster wound on his shoulder. On the morning of the third day, Ezra took the medkit with him into the tiny hallway refresher. The one in Thrawn’s quarters was likely more spacious, but the crew seemed unwilling to penetrate his bubble of privacy and so it had remained implicitly off-limits. He set the kit down on the lid of the commode and awkwardly removed his jacket.

The first thing he did was examine himself in the small mirror over the sink. Even though it was far too soon for external signs of starvation to show, Ezra couldn’t help but feel like the bones of his face showed sharper through his skin. It made him look older and more worn. There was a bandage over his right cheek, covering a cut that he couldn’t remember receiving. He peeled it off, wanting to examine the damage. The slice was clean, but fairly deep. It ran from his cheekbone down to his jaw. Hammerly had closed it with glue from the medkit, and it no longer bled, but it was still red and there was some bruising developing around it. He grimaced, and it pulled uncomfortably on the flesh. One more facial scar to add to the collection.

He moved on to his shoulder. He removed his makeshift sling and unwound the bandage. It was an awkward task to do by himself, but no Imperials had offered to help and Ezra certainly wasn’t going to ask now that he wasn’t on the verge of passing out. 

There was some bruising on the front of his chest, but no open wounds. It was much more difficult to see his back where he had actually been shot. The mirror was hung for someone at least a few inches taller than he was. He had to stand on his toes and twist his head around in a way that pulled painfully at the damaged tissue. The hole made by the blaster itself was surprisingly small, cauterized by the heat of the blaster bolt. Purple bruising, now coloring to green and yellow, surrounded it. Of more concern was the state of his shoulder blade. Ezra had spent enough time in the Alliance infirmary on Atollon while Kanan was recovering to learn a fair bit about blaster wounds. Blaster bolts did not only burn and puncture; they also impacted with a concussive force. Ezra suspected that his scapula bone was fractured. 

Fortunately, between his jedi training and his youth, Ezra had flexible shoulders. (Or, at least he did when they hadn’t been _shot_.) He was able to apply the bacta patch over the wound in the mirror without too much trouble. Rewrapping the bandage to secure the patch and help stabilize his shoulder was much harder. Ezra found that he had to awkwardly hold one end in place with his chin while he looped it around his upper arm and shoulder and use the protruding edge of the doorframe to keep taught while he wound it around his chest. In the end, it was noticeably messier and a bit looser than it had been when Hammerly had done it, but it would suffice.

Ezra decided to use the ‘fresher while he was at it. After washing his hands, he pulled on his gloves and reinserted his arm into his makeshift sling. The leather of the belt cut painfully into his neck as he settled the weight of his arm into the loop. Maybe he’d have to sneak into Thrawn’s bedroom afterall to steal a pillowcase and fashion a more comfortable one. With that thought to cheer him up, he exited the ‘fresher.

A naval officer was waiting outside the door when he emerged into the hallway. It was Pyrondi, one of the survivors who had been found unconscious in the crew pit. The other survivor, the one with the groin wound, had slipped into a coma a few hours ago. When the remaining bacta had been given to Ezra, it was a tacit admission that the man wouldn’t make it.

Ezra raised a hand to her as he passed by, and she offered him a small smile in return

Pyrondi had been excused from the evacuation efforts as she was still recovering from a fairly bad concussion. Ezra had gathered that she couldn’t remember anything about the attack on Lothal. Her first questions when she had awoken had a confusing jumble of nonsense words about savits and grisks and sevtoks. Her obvious confusion at the situation had made it harder to be mad at her. She was also the only one besides him who didn’t spend all her waking hours shifting debris, and so their paths inevitably crossed during the day.

Thrawn, when he emerged from the maintenance shaft in the middle of the second day to find Ezra snooping around the command deck, had instructed him to go about seeing if he could do anything about their damaged communications array. It was as though Thrawn had belatedly realized that it was a disastrous idea to leave a teenage Jedi rebel unoccupied and unsupervised aboard his ship. As usual, Ezra considered ignoring Thrawn’s command on principle, but he recognized that the opportunity to mess around unimpeded with a Star Destroyer’s systems was too good to pass up out of spite.

The task involved spending hours in the guts of a terminal in the communications annex that had been transformed into a makeshift morgue. At first Ezra had wondered why they didn’t just move the bodies to a room they weren’t actually _using_ , but then he realized that it would require time and manual labor that were more critical to clearing the maintenance shaft.

Ezra hadn’t had any particular luck finding anything interesting _or_ repairing their comms. It was the sort of thing that Chopper or Sabine usually handled, not him. He did find himself squirreling away useful looking bits and pieces of tech into his pockets, though. They might come in handy down the line.

It was painful to think about Sabine and Chopper and the rest of his family back on Lothal. He had avoided doing so thus far because it made it easier to keep going. The ache in his chest when he thought about Kanan had already started to become familiar, so in an odd way, those memories hurt less. Kanan, he knew, was at peace within the Force. But Hera, Sabine, Chopper, and Zeb were forever frozen in a state of uncertainty. Had his sacrifice been enough to keep them safe? Would the Empire attempt to take revenge for its defeat over Lothal? What would become of the larger rebellion?

Now that he had permitted them a foothold, the thoughts wouldn’t leave him, even hours later. Knowing the danger of allowing such concerns to fester, Ezra attempted to meditate. 

After the first day, the Imperials had taken over one of the larger conference rooms to use as a sleeping space. They had gone through and hacked the cushions off of all of the conference chairs and spread them out over the floor. Ezra had assisted with the task, and so no one complained when he claimed a corner of the room for himself. It wasn’t particularly comfortable—the cushions were thin foam, holding true to Imperial standards of austerity—but it was better than sleeping directly on the floor. In an attempt to darken the room, Gravesend had tossed uniform jackets over the emergency baseboard lighting. 

Ezra knelt back on his heels in the nest of cushions he had created. The jackets didn’t completely block the light, so he could still see the dim silhouettes of several sleeping figures around the perimeter of the room. He shut his eyes. If he let his mind drift, he could almost believe he was back aboard the _Ghost_ , listening to Zeb’s snores filter up from the bunk below him. He concentrated on that—the memory of the quiet, in-between moments where he could forget that they were at war. Those were the moments he was trying to protect. His family was made up of survivors; they would get by without him. Zeb had Kallus, Sabine had her parents and her brother, and Hera...well, Hera had Chopper, the _Ghost_ , and the Rebellion. And with the will of the Force permitting, it wouldn’t be goodbye forever. He would see them again...someday. Ezra let that bright sensation of hope expand to fill his chest, pushing all his worry and fear out into the Force, where it quietly dissipated away.

Ezra continued sitting until the muscles in his back and shoulder began to ache from the exertion of maintaining his upright meditative posture. With a slow exhale, he opened his eyes. In the darkness of the still room, he removed his boots as quietly as he could with one hand, lay down on the lumpy pile of cushions, and attempted to get some sleep.

Ezra woke some time later. He slept uneasily, and in his tossing and turning had jostled his wounded shoulder. The sudden intensification of pain jolted him into wakefulness. He tried to fall back asleep, but the ache in his back and the gnawing hunger in his stomach made it impossible to get comfortable again. Finally admitting defeat, Ezra silently toed on his boots and tiptoed out into the corridor, the hiss of the door loud in the silence as it slid shut behind him. 

He made his way his way down the hall towards the bridge, intending to distract himself by mucking around with the comms system. Maybe he’d be able to get it operational enough to sneak a distress call to the Rebellion...or at least give his family some reassurance that he had survived. 

To his surprise, the communications annex wasn’t empty. 

Thrawn stood bowed over the holotable, one hand behind his back, the other stroking his chin in contemplation. It was the first time that Ezra had seen the projector illuminated; he had assumed that it had been deemed a non-essential power drain. Blue-tinged images floated in the air. They appeared to be holos of some sort of sculptural fragment—more of Thrawn’s _art_. At the sound of the door opening, Thrawn glanced up. He looked tired.

In a surprising show of solidarity with his crew, Thrawn had staked out his own corner of the conference room, despite having an entire suite of rooms at his disposal just down the hall. Ezra had never actually caught him sleeping there, though. Either it was just for show, or Chiss needed significantly less sleep than humans. Ezra knew for a fact that Thrawn had spent the last twelve hours overseeing the work in the maintenance shaft, so perhaps it was the latter. Or maybe Thrawn, too, had ghosts haunting him.

The polite thing to do would have been to apologize for interrupting and back out of the room. But Ezra felt politeness was something to be earned, and Thrawn certainly wasn’t worthy of it.

So instead, Ezra marched himself over to the advanced comms terminal that he had been in the middle of disassembling. He plopped himself down on the stool, fully prepared to ignore Thrawn’s presence. 

He had barely begun tinkering when Thrawn suddenly spoke.

“You speak to me of _understanding_ , Bridger, but you have no conception of the havoc you have wrought in your own ignorance and arrogance.” He seemed to be picking up the thread of a conversation that Ezra couldn’t recall dropping. There was an edge of genuine irritation in his voice that Ezra had never heard before. But if Thrawn wanted a fight, Ezra was happy to oblige. He had felt on edge ever since he had awoken and the ache in his shoulder only shortened his temper.

“ _My_ arrogance?” he scoffed. “I’m not the one—”

Thrawn cut him off. “They, too, were arrogant, and it blinded them to any dangers beyond their own petty squabbles.” He gestured broadly at the holoprojections. “It was their undoing.”

Ezra opened his mouth, ready to argue, but Thrawn continued before he had the opportunity.

“Your Alliance’s foolish rebellion threatens to jeopardize the freedom of the very peoples you claim to desire to liberate. There are threats that exist beyond the Empire’s borders that are more terrible than any of the banal evils your Emperor contrives. It is _power_ that keeps those threats at bay. And the actions of your rebellion threaten to fracture the very power that _protects_ this galaxy. And _you_ , Ezra Bridger, perhaps _you_ have doomed us all.”

“ _I_ ’ve doomed us all?” Ezra couldn’t believe the bantha-shit Thrawn was spewing. Did he truly believe any of that? “Palpatine is a _Sith Lord_. It doesn’t get much more evil than that!”

Thrawn’s eyebrows went up slightly. So he hadn’t known about the Emperor? “Palpatine is a Sith Lord…?” he repeated, almost to himself. “Well, that _does_ confirm my suspicions.”

Ezra couldn’t _believe_ this. “The Empire isn’t only not a _lesser_ evil, it's the _present_ evil. Excusing injustices for the sake of safety and security is how we ended up with Palpatine in the first place. Even if these mysterious threats of yours _did_ exist, it wouldn’t justify propping up the Empire.”

“Oh, I assure you, Bridger,” Thrawn said coldly, “the threats are _very_ real. As I suspect you will learn sooner than you might desire.” The words sounded menacing.

Ezra suddenly did not feel like arguing anymore. He looked back down at the mess of wires inside the console. He was also no longer in the mood to stare at the inner workings of a machine he didn’t fully understand.

Without another sign of acknowledgement to Thrawn, he got up and left the room. Maybe if he tried meditating again, he could squeeze in another hour of sleep.

* * *

At what might have been first light on the fifth day, had there still been dawns or days, Ezra was shaken awake from an uneasy slumber by Hammerly.

“Get up, Bridger,” she said. “That arm of yours had better be healed. You’re up.”

Ezra understood immediately. 

The atmosphere was tense. There was an implicit understanding that they would not be returning to the bridge once they accessed the main body of the ship. Everyone gathered up what little supplies they had accumulated over the past week. Thrawn donned an elegant white backpack that hung heavily on its straps. He offered no hints as to what it contained.

Ezra didn’t have much to take with him. He had arrived on the _Chimaera_ with nothing but the clothes on his back, and all he had added to his collection were the mechanical odds-and-ends stashed in his pockets. He unlooped the belt from around his neck and experimented with moving his arm. The bacta really _had_ done wonders for it. It still hurt like sith hells if he tried to wing his shoulder blades or raise his arm past ninety degrees, but his range of motion had improved considerably. After a couple of tries, he was even able to pull on both jacket sleeves and completely close up the front. He knew he looked ridiculous, his brown pants and boots paired with the olive drab of the Imperial uniform, but it was better than nothing.

Before they departed, everyone put on a helmet, even Thrawn. With his face concealed, he looked almost indistinguishable from a human. Ezra felt a pang of nostalgia for the brightly painted helmet Sabine had once decorated for him. Stormtrooper armor was useless for long term exposure to vacuum, but it would be sufficient getting them across a distance of a few meters. 

The maintenance shaft was narrow, about as wide across as an astromech, seeing as most maintenance droids aboard Star Destroyers _were_ modified astromechs. It was accessed from the lowest level of the bridge through a wall panel that even Ezra had to stoop down to get through. The ladder descending one side seemed almost to be an afterthought. Ezra took half a second to puzzle at the dearth of droids aboard the _Chimera_. Usually a ship this size was crawling with them. Below, barely visible in the dark, similarly sized tunnels branched off perpendicularly from the shaft at regular intervals. 

They had to descend the ladder one at a time. Ezra went first. _Probably so they have a soft cushion to land on if anyone slips_ , he thought, a bit unfairly. After all, they needed him alive and unharmed if they were ever going to reach the supplies and escape pods. A small part of him was grateful that the man with the groin wound, Malus, had died the day before. Even Thrawn, who was huge and unfairly strong and coordinated, never would have been able to carry him down. Pyrondi was sandwiched between Jima and Thrawn, who neatly tugged the wall panel closed behind him. Pyrondi’s balance was still compromised by her head injury, and Thrawn had planned several breaks in their descent to accommodate her. In all honesty, they would probably _all_ need the breaks. The hunger had started to noticeably affect _everyone’s_ strength and stamina, except maybe Thrawn. (Another of life’s gross injustices.)

As he descended, Ezra began to appreciate the effort it had taken to clear even minor obstructions from the shaft. The only light was the emergency glowsticks they had all hung around their necks, and there was no place from which to gain leverage. If the access panel on a floor was blocked, there was nowhere to rest between levels unless you hunched down into one of the horizontal shafts. The divisions between decks were clearly demarcated by blast doors: currently open, but ready to snap shut at any drop in pressure.

They stopped every ten levels to take a brief breather, all piling out onto the floor through the little access panel in the wall. Ezra was grateful that he still had his gloves, because his hands were starting to ache from clenching onto the poles of the ladder.

A painful jolt traveled up Ezra’s legs when he put his foot down, expecting another rung of ladder, and instead encountered a flat floor.

“We made it to the bottom!” he called up. There wasn’t really room in the maintenance shaft for two people to stand, so he immediately felt around for the latch to the wall panel without waiting for a response. He wished he had brought some sort of weapon down with him. Even though he knew that Thrawn’s men had already scouted this far, part of him still anticipated a trap waiting for him in the hallway as soon as he exited.

There was no trap. Instead, the corridor he emerged into was eerily silent, illuminated only by the same emergency lighting that had lit the bridge. Ezra moved away from the access panel so that the others would have room to exit.

When all the Imperials had finally made their way out of the maintenance shaft, Ezra waved a nebulous hand. “One of you will have to go first this time. I don’t know which direction we’re going.” His voice was heavily muffled by the helmet.

“We are continuing straight to the right side of this passage, but you may follow me if you wish, Bridger,” Thrawn said, striding towards the font of their small group and proceeding decisively down the hall. He walked quickly, and Ezra, with his shorter legs, had to fall into an awkward not-quite-jog to keep up. _Smug asshole with a karked-up sense of morality_ and _his legs are too long_. Ezra tacked another item onto his list of “Reasons to Hate Thrawn.”

Ezra couldn’t quite determine what this part of the _Chimaera_ was for. They really were just continuing straight down the corridor. There didn’t seem to be any doors or intersections branching off of it or any signs or terminals that might indicate its utility. 

The invariance of his surroundings made it difficult for Ezra to judge how long they had been walking before Thrawn drew up short in front of a pair of sealed blast doors. They must have reached the portion of the hall where the hull had caved in.

“I will manually seal off the blast doors behind us once everyone is through, and then I will initiate the sequence for controlled depressurization,” Thrawn announced. “Ensure that your helmet seals are secure.” 

Once the blast doors had closed behind the last trooper, Thrawn entered a code into the wall-mounted keypad and depressurization commenced. Ezra felt his heartbeat quicken slightly as the air slowly seeped out of the enclosed space. He willed it to slow, knowing that his helmet couldn’t sustain any hyperventilation.

Within minutes, they were in vacuum.

“Are you prepared, Bridger?” Thrawn asked.

Ezra nodded.

The second pair of blast doors opened, and Ezra was finally able to see what he was up against.

A large section of the bridge tower’s hull plating had torn off and crashed through the ceiling of the corridor, trapped in place by the _Chimaera’s_ own artificial gravity. It perpendicularly bisected the hallway and had taken down various support struts and tiles as it fell. Ezra could see the fragmented ends of torn wires and broken pipes jutting out at odd angles.

The gravity field generated by Imperial Star Destroyers only extended a few inches past the perimeter of the ships’ hulls. If Ezra could lift the piece of hull plating far enough to free it of the ship’s gravity, it would be flung out of hyperspace and, hopefully, would drop into realspace in the middle of nowhere.

It wasn’t the most difficult or the most dangerous task he had ever been faced with, but it was by no means the easiest, either.

Ezra took a deep breath and stepped over the threshold to approach the obstruction. Time to earn his keep.

“Brace yourselves,” he warned the Imperials still clustered in the corridor behind him and extended his arms to reach out with the Force.

The durasteel was unyielding. Ezra could feel sweat begin to coalesce under his helmet. Kanan had usually been the one to do heavy lifting with the Force, or they had worked together. It felt strange to be attempting something like this alone.

He reached deeper into the Force. _Do or do not, there is no try,_ Ezra reminded himself. It was this, or starve to death alongside his enemies on a dying Imperial starship. The hull plate began to move, centimeter by centimeter, inching off the ground. Pain radiated out from his injured shoulder. His arm shook. The huge block of metal echoed the tremor with a midair wobble. Ezra gritted his teeth, and with a final, herculean effort, he thrust the massive piece of debris upward. 

It was enough to free the wreckage from the hold of the _Chimaera’s_ artificial gravity. It was almost comical how something so seemingly inertial simply could blink out of existence. Ezra briefly shut his eyes, gulping in a few precious breaths of oxygen.

While he was recovering his composure, Thrawn strode past him through the newly cleared passage, followed by the Imperial complement. He halted them in front of the far set of sealed blast doors with a series of hand signals Ezra couldn’t parse. They still hadn’t regained their comms, even the ones in their helmets. He keyed something into the access panel—probably depressurizing the next section of corridor so that they could open the blast doors.

When they were back in atmosphere and could finally speak again, Thrawn took the opportunity to say, “Excellent work, Commander Bridger.”

Ezra, who was worn out and hated nothing more than being condescended to, flipped him off.

Several of the other Imperials started forward as if to protect their admiral’s honor, but Thrawn waved them off. He seemed to find Ezra’s response amusing.

It didn’t take them long after that to reach the turbolifts, which, fortunately, _were_ operational. In fact, the starboard half of the _Chimaera_ seemed to have fared a great deal better than the rest of the ship. The corridors were well-lit and the air even seemed a little warmer. The only real indication that something had gone horribly wrong was the complete absence of any personnel.

Their little group of ten had two split in half to fit into the turbolifts. Ezra found himself squeezed into the “officers’ lift” with Thrawn, Hammerly, Pyrondi, and Jima. They descended in tense, awkward silence. They had all removed their helmets after safely crossing into the starboard half of the ship, so the tight, drawn expressions on the officers’ faces were exposed to the world. Only Thrawn looked as implacable as ever.

It happened just as the turbolift drew to halt, which was why Ezra initially didn’t recognize the sudden jerk that jolted through the _Chimaera_. He stumbled, almost knocking into Thrawn’s shoulder.

Waves of confusion and distress radiated from the purrgil, the clearest projections he had received from them in days. The _Chimaera_ rattled uneasily in their grasp. Caught up in the surge of foreign emotion, Ezra almost didn’t notice when the turbolift doors slid open.

“Admiral Thrawn?! You’re—?”

Unlike the other levels, this deck was not empty. The hall outside was quickly filling with men and women dressed in the uniform of the Imperial Navy. 

The woman who had spoken quickly recovered her composure. She drew up sharply and saluted. “We were beginning to fear that none of Senior Command survived. It is good to see you alive and well, sir. What happened?”

“Likewise, Commodore Faro,” Thrawn said, inclining his head in acknowledgement as he exited the turbolift. “However, I am afraid that we have more pressing matters to attend to first.” His expression darkened. Faro also looked suddenly grim.

“We’ve been pulled out of hyperspace.”

Ezra flashed back to the abrupt jerk he had felt as the turbolift halted. He struggled to grasp the situation, feeling like there was some crucial piece of the puzzle that he was missing. It had only been five days. Could they possibly still be in Imperial space? Had they somehow been caught by an Interdictor cruiser? But, if so...why did the Imperials all look so _concerned_?

* * *

Eli Vanto fidgeted nervously as he followed an aide into Admiral Ar’alani’s office. Even with his recent promotion, he was still only a Lieutenant Commander, and it was rare for him to be called in for a private meeting with the Admiral. He wasn’t due to make a report on his special project for another four rotations, and the only other reason he could think of that she might require his presence was—

“There has been news of Mitth’raw’nuruodo.”

—Thrawn.

Ar’alani stood facing away from him, looking out the viewport with her hands clasped at the small of her back. Eli was struck by how, at that moment, in her crisp white uniform, she reminded him of his former commander. 

Eli waited for her to continue. It had only been a week since the _Steadfast_ had parted from Thrawn in Imperial space. They were still more than a day’s travel away from Csilla, but deep enough within the Ascendancy that the Navigators had all been secreted away back to their quarters. It was hard to imagine what newsworthy thing Thrawn could have accomplished in that short amount of time, but Eli also knew better than to underestimate Thrawn’s ability to get himself into trouble.

Ar’alani slowly turned around so that she could level her glowing red gaze at Eli. Even after nearly a decade at Thrawn’s side and over a year in the Ascendancy, he still found Chiss eyes unsettling.

“Lieutenant Commander Eli’van’to,” she said, enunciating her words even more crisply than was normal for Cheunh. “It would _appear_ —” she paused, and Eli could sense her annoyance “—that after we left him, Mitth’raw’nuruodo saw fit to launch an aerial bombardment of an unprotected civilian settlement on the planet Lothal.”

“That...doesn’t sound like something Thrawn would do without a good reason,” Eli ventured. “He hates unnecessary loss of life.”

“Oh, it is my understanding that rebel insurgents there were threatening a mass execution of all Imperials occupying the planet,” Ar’alani said, seemingly unbothered. “Of greater concern to me are the reports that his attack was unsuccessful because his fleet was destroyed and his flagship carried off by—” here she said a word that Eli was unfamiliar with, her lip curling in disgusted incredulity.

Ar’alani seemed to notice his confusion, because she repeated the word in Sy Bisti. This, Eli recognized. _Purrgil_. Wait, _purrgil_?

“Are you sure this report can be trusted?” Eli asked, his surprise superseding his attention to proper etiquette.

“Unfortunately, yes.” Ar’alani narrowed her eyes at him. “Did Mitth’raw’nuruodo say anything to you to indicate what he was planning?” she asked. “Have you encountered these purrgil before?”

Eli shook his head, heart starting to sink. “This doesn’t sound like something Thrawn would have planned… After what happened last week, he would have needed a win on Lothal to reassure the Emperor of his loyalty. This isn’t that.” He stopped, something occurring to him. “You said the _Chimaera_...disappeared.” Eli felt his enthusiasm build. “What if it’s like the grallocs? The rebels must be controlling them somehow. Shouldn’t we be looking for him, sir?”

Ar’alani shook her head. She looked away from Eli, gazing back out into hyperspace. _Was Thrawn looking out at a similar view?_ Chiss didn’t show age the same way humans did, but Eli was suddenly struck by how tired she looked. 

“Mitth’raw’nuruodo knew the risks he took when he left the Ascendancy,” she said slowly. “The political climate in Csaplar will not permit us to conduct a search. We can only hope that Mitth’raw’nuruodo defies the odds once again. Otherwise, I fear that they will be against _us_.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw:  
> \- ezra & co are stranded for ~5 days without access to food, but _with_ access to potable water  
> \- descriptions of imperials wounded in attack  
> \- descriptions of ezra recovering from blaster wound to shoulder


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: animal death (see end notes for details)
> 
> thank you, as always, to esmeraldablazingsky for betaing!

_Five Days Ago_

It was very odd to hear the call to combat-readiness and yet not be on the _Chimaera’s_ bridge. Officially, Karyn Faro was no longer captain of Grand Admiral Thrawn’s flagship. She had transferred command over to Commander—newly Captain— Hammerly during their journey to Lothal, and been relieved of duty so that she could spend the remainder of the voyage packing up her quarters. She was to depart on a shuttle bound for Coruscant upon their arrival in the system, heading to orientation to assume command of the Eleventh Fleet.

But then, of course, they had emerged from hyperspace into the middle of a rebel coup on Lothal. Thrawn had immediately put the fleet into lockdown, and so Faro’s departure had been delayed. Instead, she had sat, perched on the bare mattress of her bunk, meager personal effects already packed away in crates emblazoned with the Imperial cog, while sirens blared throughout the decks.

Faro had considered going up to the bridge to assist anyway, but she knew that it might be interpreted as a lack of faith in Hammerly’s command ability. So instead, she had fought every sense of duty she had and remained in her quarters instead, feeling utterly useless.

Although as captain of a flagship, Faro would typically have taken the first officer’s quarters so that the fleet’s admiral could have the captain’s rooms, Thrawn had instead converted a suite of rooms adjacent to his office into living quarters. Despite having spent over a decade serving in the Imperial Navy, the man had managed to maintain a preference for privacy that most cadets lost within their first year at the academy. Not that Faro could complain; the Empire liked to remind its subjects of their place within the Imperial hierarchy, and the captain’s quarters were commensurately more spacious than those of the first officer.

She had somehow never gotten around to decorating the place; it had been almost three years since she had been given command of the _Chimaera_ and taken over the captain’s rooms from Thrawn, but they still didn’t feel like _hers_. In truth, she felt far more at home on the bridge, among her crew, than here, alone in a soundproofed gray bubble.

Imperial Star Destroyers were so large that it was sometimes easy to forget that you were even aboard a spacecraft. The internal compartments, such as the crew quarters, often existed in a world of their own, far removed from whatever action was occurring outside the ship.

However, the vibrating energy-draw of an aerial bombardment was unmistakable. The floor beneath her feet hummed with the familiar sensation of power flowing to the turbolasers through the arteries of the ship. 

Faro frowned. She knew that _Chimaera_ had been projected to arrive over Capital City. Had the plans changed? It was unlike Thrawn to so quickly resort to an attack on a civilian population center. In fact, he usually tried to minimize loss of life...even enemy life. Something must have gone very wrong.

She had just made the decision to flag down a crew member in the corridor to find out what was happening when the first jolt rocked the _Chimaera_. Faro stumbled and braced herself against the doorframe. It felt as though the _Chimaera_ had just been rammed by another ship. 

_Surely the rebels couldn’t have gotten past the blockade…?_

Everyone who witnessed it had been shaken by Grand Admiral Savit’s recent acts of treason, but Captain Pellaeon was far too steady to allow that to affect his execution of his duties. Had the rebels managed to hijack one of the Empire’s ground-based shuttles? But the collision had felt much too large to be attributed to a shuttle...

Quickly recovering her balance, Faro slammed a hand down onto the door controls with new resolve. While this new stage of her life might be taking her elsewhere, it didn’t change the fact that the _Chimaera_ had been her second home for over five years. If it was under attack, she would do what she could to defend it. The doors to her quarters slid open with a hiss that was buried beneath a cacophony of alarms an order of magnitude louder than the ones that had blared inside her cabin. Emergency lights flashed, signaling a proximity alert, shields offline, hull damage—

Unlike the quarters for enlisted men, senior officers’ suites were only a short corridor away from the working decks of the ship so that they could arrive quickly at their duty stations in case of emergency. So it happened that she was only a few meters outside her quarters when she was nearly run over by a passing crewmember.

“Lieutenant!” she called out, drawing him to quick attention. “Report! What the _kriff_ is going on here?”

“C-Commodore!” he stammered, eyes wide with panic. “We’re under attack!”

“Yes, Lieutenant, I gathered that,” Faro said dryly. “Rebels?”

“N-no, ma’am. It’s...it’s some kind of _creature_. They came out of nowhere and started attacking the fleet! Half our systems are offline and we’ve lost contact with the bridge.”

“You’ve been unable to raise the Grand Admiral?” Faro asked sharply. She chose to ignore the _creatures_ for the moment. While she had grown used to encountering the unexpected while serving with Thrawn, and was confident in her command abilities, she knew that he would be far better equipped to handle whatever strangeness _this_ situation turned out to be. She sincerely hoped it wasn’t more Grysks.

“Long range communications are down, ma’am, and the bridge tower isn’t appearing on our internal comms. Either they’re being jammed or they’ve sustained significant damage to their comm array.”

“Those are two very different scenarios, Lieutenant,” she informed him. “Take a squadron of stormtroopers and investigate the situation. Be prepared to provide reinforcement to Grand Admiral Thrawn if the rebels have somehow commandeered the bridge. Meanwhile, who is the senior officer in command down here?”

“I...I suppose that would be _you_ , sir.”

Faro did not think that was precisely how the military chain of command worked now that she was no longer attached to the Seventh Fleet, but before she could correct him, there was a familiar momentary tugging sensation in her gut and an almost imperceptible shift in the ambience.

The _Chimaera_ had entered hyperspace.

“Lieutenant…” Faro said slowly. “Did you mention whether the hyperdrive was still online?”

“I didn’t, ma’am, but it’s not.” A look of horrified comprehension was dawning on the lieutenant’s sallow face.

Faro felt her heart sink.

“Then how did we just jump to hyperspace?”

* * *

_Now_

“Report, Commodore.”

Thrawn strode down the hall, the woman—Faro—in lockstep behind him. Her back was ramrod straight, her demeanor military stiff. Their combined presence seemed to have invigorated Thrawn’s cadre of weary, half-starved Imperials. They seemed imbued with a new aura of attention and professionalism. Were it not for their regulation-defying attire and gaunt faces, they might have been indistinguishable from the other crew members trailing behind the two officers.

Ezra struggled to keep to the front of the pack. He had no idea what had just happened. Who was Commodore Faro? Had the Chimaera been transporting a senior naval officer somewhere? Was she part of whatever Palpatine had planned for him? Why had they been pulled out of hyperspace? Were they being attacked? He could still sense the waves of distress rolling off the purrgil. 

“Something’s _wrong_ —” he started to say, a deep certainty settling within his gut, when a sudden impact rocked through the _Chimaera_. Ezra stumbled forward.

Thrawn, damn him, maintained his balance, but Faro’s brisk pace faltered.

“We’re under attack, sir,” she announced, expression drawing tight. Ezra felt a brief lurch of hope. Could the _Ghost_ have found them? But Hera would know not to attack the purrgil, and whoever this was, they weren't discriminating with their aim. His heart sank again.

“Then I am afraid a detailed report will have to wait. Status of the auxiliary command center?” Thrawn said.

“Weapons and shields are down. Hyperdrive and long-range comms are inoperable, but we _were_ able to get internal communications running.”

Another blast shook the ship. The overhead lights flickered.

“That leaves us with few options, then.” Thrawn looked over his shoulder, past Ezra, to Hammerly. “Captain? Your thoughts?”

“Without shields, weapons, or hyperdrive, we’re sitting ducks,” Hammerly said. “A kid with a bb-blaster could take us out right now.” She looked like the only decision she wanted to be making right now was which bunk to claim for her own, but she met Thrawn’s gaze evenly. “The crew should abandon ship. The escape pods will provide smaller, more numerous targets that don’t show up as clearly on sensors. If this is a Grysk interdictor cylinder, the _lambdas_ won’t be able to jump to hyperspace, but they might be able to locate and destroy the cylinder and take some of the enemy with us.”

“I've come to a similar conclusion,” Thrawn confirmed. He turned to incline his head towards Faro. “You said that internal communications are operable in this section of the ship? If you would issue the command, please, Commodore.”

She jerked her chin in a sharp nod. “Yes, sir.” Faro issued a series of orders into her communicator. “I’ve instructed our remaining skilled pilots and gunners to man the shuttles, sir.” She grimaced. “It’s unfortunate that our entire complement of TIEs were lost over Lothal.”

Despite their present situation, Ezra felt a reflexive burst of pride. Star Destroyers spawned TIEs like an arachnids out of an egg sac; eliminating them all in one go was a rebel pilot's fantasy. Even Thrawn's vaunted TIE Defenders had proved to be no match for the purrgil.

Their entourage paused at the next comm terminal. Faro inserted her code cylinder, and a red light began blinking on the display. She took a deep breath. “This is Commodore Karyn Faro, authorization code IN-F11-CE-FK01, invoking Protocol 21. We are under attack. All hands abandon ship.” 

The baseboard lights flashed red as the command echoed through the halls of the _Chimaera._ The second repetition of the recording had barely finished when the third, and largest blow so far wracked the ship. Alarm klaxons began to blare, weaving an earsplitting, atonal accompaniment to Faro’s broadcast.

“Commodore,” Thrawn said, voice raised to make himself heard over the noise, “please take Bridger and three other crew of your choosing and prepare my...secondary shuttle. You will need my personal access codes to enter." He passed her his code cylinder. "I have some tasks to attend to in auxiliary command first, but I will join you shortly thereafter.” 

Faro accepted the cylinder automatically, as if on autopilot. She seemed torn between protesting Thrawn’s pronouncement and staring at Ezra, whose presence she only just now seemed to notice.

“ _Bridger?_ The little Jedi brat?”

“Hey! I’m not _that_ small!” Ezra felt offended. He hadn’t almost single-handedly orchestrated the destruction of the Seventh Fleet just to be insulted by some woman he had never even met. Her snooty Core accent reminded him unpleasantly of Pryce.

“Ah, yes. You were, perhaps, unaware of his earlier surrender, Commodore,” Thrawn said. “But I assure you, Bridger poses no threat to us at the moment. In fact, I suspect that he may prove to be quite a valuable asset.”

Faro looked unconvinced. “The crew filled me in on what happened after he turned himself in, sir. They said he blasted his way through half the ship to get to the bridge, and then he called those _creatures_ to attack us. How do we know he isn’t somehow responsible for this attack, as well, sir?”

Ezra rolled his eyes and threw up his hands in a gesture of surrender. "You caught me! Starving for a week and then getting myself blown up was all part of my _master plan_."

Faro glared at him. "That joke isn't as funny as you seem to think it is,” she informed him haughtily. She looked worriedly back to Thrawn. “Grand Admiral, sir, if the rebel insurgents were suborned by the Grysk…" 

“Let us hope that is not the case, Commodore,” Thrawn replied. He slowed to a halt. They had arrived at an intersection in the corridor. “I must take my leave of you here.” He paused, face flashing purple under the red light of the emergency alerts. He seemed to be considering something. “You have my permission to take whatever steps you consider necessary to insure Bridger’s cooperation.”

Before Ezra had a chance to process what was happening, Thrawn vanished down the left-hand passage, quickly rounding the corner and disappearing from view. Faro made a quick gesture with her right hand. One of the stormtroopers accompanying her stepped forward to place the muzzle of a blaster against the small of Ezra’s back. He started at the unexpected touch. The blaster hovered there, an unsubtle threat that was, really, unnecessary.

Ezra was too tired, hungry, and confused to feel as betrayed by this development as he might have otherwise, but he still instinctively reached out with the Force to the purrgil. It was an ultimately futile gesture, of course. Their minds were closed off to his touch, their attention elsewhere. Nonetheless, he could sense their pain rippling out through the Force in discordant waves. His intense feeling of _wrongness_ about their present situation deepened.

We _aren't the ones being attacked,_ he realized. 

“They aren’t targeting us!” Ezra blurted out. “They’re attacking the purrgil!”

As he said it, the whole ship shook violently, sending the stormtroopers knocking against the walls in a clatter of plastoid-on-durasteel. The overhead lights flicked off, plunging them into momentary darkness. A few heartbeats later, they came back on again, now only half as bright.

“That was a direct hit to our power generators,” Faro announced, ignoring him entirely. “We’re running on auxiliary now. We _are_ being targeted. We need to hurry if we want there to be a hangar bay still left by the time we arrive.”

She broke into a jog. They all followed, and even Ezra forced himself into a tired trot, encouraged to push through his weariness by the urgency of the situation and the blaster still trained on his back.

Star Destroyers were _big_ —almost impractically so. Ezra had never quite realized just _how_ impractical they were until it dawned on him that it could potentially take them upwards of a quarter hour to reach an escape pod. The vibrations of several worryingly close explosions trembled the deck beneath them as they ran before they finally arrived at a set of turbolifts.

Faro turned to survey her entourage. 

“Hammerly, Pyrondi—with me,” she barked to the only other senior officers present. “Sxel, accompany Bridger.” This was addressed to someone behind Ezra. “We’ll be going to the hangar to prepare Admiral Thrawn’s shuttle. The rest of you, evacuate to the escape pods. Dismissed!” 

The men saluted and quickly scattered. Out of the corner of his eye, Ezra caught the haggard faces of the rest of the crew from the bridge, Jima, Gravesend, and Wytt among them, in the crowd disappearing down the hall towards what must have been the hatches for the escape pods. They hadn’t exactly become friends, or even really acquaintances, during their five days in isolation together, but as Ezra found himself being shunted into the turbolift by a different stormtrooper—presumably Sxel—alongside Hammerly, Pyrondi, and Faro, he almost found himself tempted to raise a hand to wave them a small “farewell.” But before he had the chance, the door to the turbolift slid shut, blocking them from view.

Ezra felt a small, hard to identify emotion blossom deep in his chest at the certain knowledge that he would never see them again.

Mere seconds later, the turbolift doors reopened onto a view of the empty, smoldering hangar bay.

_Imperial_ -class Star Destroyer hangar bays were a sight to behold: great maws that could devour rebel flagships with their tractor beams or release a furious storm of TIE fighters, unnervingly open to the black expanse of space, and with only the thin barrier of a magnetic shield separating atmosphere from vacuum. They were, in Ezra’s experience, unfailingly teeming with ships and personnel, although this view might be biased by the fact that he generally only caught glimpses of them mid-attack or mid-escape.

Now, empty of ships or crew, the main hangar seemed even more cavernous.

Through the shimmer of the magnetic shield, Ezra could see the metallic glimmer of scattered escape pods erupt into bright balls of flame as they were picked off one by one by enemy fire. 

A large, dark shape drifted past, briefly obscuring his view. With a sickening jolt to his stomach, Ezra realized it was a purrgil. 

A _dead_ purrgil. 

Its side was deeply scored with burns from some high-powered energy weapon. As the _Chimaera_ shook under another salvo from their unknown attacker, Ezra thought back on how ineffective the Star Destroyer’s turbolasers had been against the purrgil’s thick hides. It took a _lot_ of firepower to injure a purrgil, let alone _kill_ one. 

Just who was _out_ there?

The far side of the bay, where land assault craft were stored, was in ruins. Ezra picked out a pair of AT-ST legs, bereft of their cabin, sticking out comically from the rubble. To his left, the racks that would have, in other circumstances, housed Thrawn’s prized TIE Defenders were empty. The _Chimaera_ had never looked more like a ghost ship.

From the turbolift, Faro hurriedly led the five of them down a short passage at the fore of the main hangar. Hammerly and Pyrondi stuck close behind her, although Pyrondi’s path had a sickly wobble to it, her coordination still unrecovered from her concussion and subsequent malnutrition. Sxel brought up the rear with a brisk march, nudging Ezra along ahead of him with the nose of his blaster. 

The narrow hallway quickly opened up onto the auxiliary hangar bay that was typically reserved for the shuttles of high-ranking officials. Ezra had spent many late nights on the _Ghost_ studying the blueprints of various Imperial vessels—Star Destroyers included—and knew where things were in theory, once he had a decent point of reference. You just never knew when that information would come in handy. (He also had an _excellent_ mental map of the Star Destoryer’s ventilation shafts.)

Where the _Chimaera's_ complement of _Lambda_ -class shuttles would normally have been parked, there was only one small, shabby looking freighter of indeterminate provenance. It didn't look like the type of ship Thrawn-The-Impeccable-Art-Snob would use as a shuttle, and Ezra briefly wondered if someone had made a mistake. Thrawn was going to be angry when he realized that one of the pilots had taken his shuttle, and left him to escape in _this_ piece of junk instead.

But apparently it _was_ Thrawn’s shuttle after all, because Faro didn’t pause before inserting the code cylinder into the security port by the hatch. With a click, the door slid open and the cargo ramp extended, revealing a glimpse of an interior that was every bit as underwhelming as the exterior.

“Everyone inside," she commanded, stepping aside to clear the way.

They filed up the incline into a dimly-lit cargo bay that was about half the size of the _Ghost_ 's. There were studiously nondescript crates stacked haphazardly around the perimeter whose facades gave no hints as to their contents. The larger stacks were loosely lashed into place with cargo netting, but other containers were free to shift should the ship experience any sudden changes in acceleration.

Faro entered last, and left the ramp down. Now that all five of them were inside, the cluttered cargo bay felt even smaller.

"I’ll watch Bridger," Faro said, drawing her blaster from the holster on her hip and training it on him. Ezra wondered whether he should be flattered that she thought that one half-healed, half-starved Jedi teenager with no lightsaber or weapon of any kind could hijack a shuttle from four Imps on high-alert. "Sxel, you go initiate the start-up sequence. Pyrondi, can you handle the guns?"

Pyrondi looked like she was one shudder of an explosion away from toppling over. She was naturally a slender woman, and a week without food had left her looking dangerously frail. She leaned heavily on one of the crates for support. Even a stormtrooper in a sandstorm would probably be better equipped to hit a target. 

"Better not, ma'am. I was concussed during the attack, and I'm still not seeing totally straight."

Faro grimaced. "Damn. You're our best aim. Take co-pilot instead, then. And see if you can figure out where the hell we are.” 

Ezra was not sure that Pyrondi should be piloting a ship, either, but of course, nobody asked _him_. 

“Hammerly?"

Hammerly drew herself up and saluted. "Yes, ma'am. I can shoot."

That didn’t mean much, coming from an Imperial, but again...Faro hadn’t asked for volunteers and she still had a blaster pointed at him, so Ezra kept his mouth shut.

The two women followed Sxel up the rickety metal stairs into the main level of the ship.

Now that they were alone, Faro trained her full attention on Ezra. "We'll be waiting here for the admiral to return," she informed him. 

As she said it, the overhead lights came on unexpectedly to chase the shadows out of the corners of the cargo hold, as though the word “admiral” had been a secret start-up code. An electric thrum began to permeate the skeleton of the freighter as its systems came to life. Ezra blinked as his eyes struggled to adjust to the sudden change in brightness. Although it was difficult to ignore the ever-present warning of Faro's blaster, he decided to use the opportunity to surreptitiously observe his new surroundings.

The freighter had the vibe of something that Hondo might have ended up in if he had been particularly down on his luck. The exterior had looked old and poorly maintained. The interior didn't look much better, but Ezra had a suspicion that its systems, while dated, probably ran almost as smoothly as the _Ghost's_. 

A narrow, steep metal open-riser staircase at the back wall of the cargo hold terminated in a small platform and a pressure door that must lead to the main cabin and crew quarters. The cargo hold must have taken up a solid third of the ship's habitable space; the vessel was probably intended to be a snug fit for a crew of four. 

Ezra didn't want to think about how cramped the cabin would be with the six of them aboard. He, Thrawn, Pyrondi, and Hammerly might be half-starved, but they still all took up a decent amount of space. At least when they had been trapped in the bridge tower they had each had plenty of room to spread out. Maybe Thrawn would take pity on him and lock him in the cargo hold…it would be better than being forced to knock elbows with the blue bastard.

Speaking of…

"So which unlucky smuggler did Thrawn steal _this_ ship from? I know a lot of smugglers, but this one doesn’t look familiar."

Faro glared at him.

"Okay, sorry I asked!"

They dropped into an uncomfortable silence.

It was broken by another explosion, this one centered on the storage lockers at the fore of the auxiliary hangar, which were just visible out of the corner of the open cargo hatch. The lockers burst into flames, sending a wave of heat billowing out towards the shuttle. The deck shook beneath Ezra's feet as both the freighter and the _Chimaera_ rocked from the force of the blast. The crates along the side of the hold which weren't as well-secured wobbled precariously.

The comms crackled to life somewhere overhead. Hammerly's voice came through, saying, "Commodore, the admiral had better get here soon, or we'll all go down with the _Chimaera_."

"Hold steady, Captain," Faro insisted. "He said he'd join us, so he'll join us."

"Yes, ma'am."

Even Ezra could hear the trace of doubt in Hammerly's voice.

He wondered whether Faro was speaking out of faith or out of loyalty. Ezra knew of Thrawn’s reputation for obtaining results, so it was easy to see why Faro might place her faith in him, but it was hard to imagine how Thrawn’s cold arrogance could inspire _loyalty_. The great leaders of the Rebellion _earned_ their followings not only through their tactical skill, but also through their capacity to empathize and build rapport. A zealot’s loyalty was fragile, and faith in Imperial goodwill always resulted in nothing but disappointment and suffering. After all, Kallus' blind loyalty to the Empire convinced him to commit atrocities, but had been easily shattered by a simple act of kindness. 

There was a second, louder explosion, this one much more immediate. Ezra stumbled as the shockwave sent the freighter scraping a few feet across the deck in a sickening screech. Faro's aim wavered and she reached out to catch herself on the rail of the staircase.

"A fuel tank just blew," announced an unfamiliar voice over the intercom. It must have been Sxel, his audio doubly distorted by the helmet vocoder and the ship’s speaker. "Blast tipped a couple of other tanks and they're spilling our direction. We need to leave before they catch."

Faro gritted her teeth. "Just another minute. Initiate pre-flight sequences so that we're ready to leave immediately."

A hot gust rushed in through the open cargo door, and the air outside began to shimmer with heat. Ezra had the wild thought that there were too many ways to suffocate in space. Smoke inhalation definitely had to be one of the more unpleasant ones.

Ezra was about to cast his vote in favor of _getting the hell out of Dagobah_ when Thrawn appeared from the passage connecting to the main hangar. He was running, which was something that Ezra didn't think he had ever seen Thrawn, whose actions were always infuriatingly measured and controlled, do. It seemed unnatural, like a Mon Cal flying or a Wookiee swimming.

When Thrawn was about three meters away, Faro wasted no time slamming her palm down on the button that would recall the ramp. As it began to retract, she pressed the commlink control on the wall and said, "Commander Sxel, the Admiral has returned. Initiate takeoff."

The engines roared to life over the sound of the encroaching conflagration. Thrawn covered the remaining distance in a few long strides. He leapt onto the retreating ramp, landing a little awkwardly but quickly regaining his balance with a grace that Ezra never could have managed. Which, given that Ezra was a _Jedi_ , was decidedly unfair. He had to content himself with the fact that Thrawn’s hair, which he had somehow managed to keep unerringly slicked-back through their entire ordeal, was now disheveled, flopping stiffly at odd angles over his brow.

"Commodore Faro, Ezra Bridger, accompany me to the cockpit." He did not address the purpose of his unexplained detour, nor give any sign of whether he had accomplished what he had set out to do.

But there was no time for questions, because the freighter was already lifting off the ground. They hastened up the stairs: Thrawn, Ezra, then Faro. There was a short, very narrow corridor with two doors on each side. It opened up into a small eating area that was bisected by a laddered tunnel that must have led down to the single gun turret. At the fore of the cabin were blast doors that currently opened on to the cockpit. Sxel was at the helm, with Pyrondi slumped in the co-pilot’s seat beside him. 

As they put distance between them and the _Chimaera_ ’s hanger, it became clear that what was occurring without was not just an attack, but a massacre. The _Chimaera_ floated in a debris field comprised of the scattered fragments of escape pods and the wreckage of at least one _Lambda_ shuttle. Ezra thought back on that final, fleeting glimpse of Jima, Gravesend, and Wytt as he entered the turbolift. Escape pods had no shielding, no weapons, and barely any maneuverability, and none of the ones visible through the freighter’s viewport were intact. Even Imperials didn’t deserve to die like that. 

But the Imperials weren’t the only victims. The bodies of dead and dying purrgil drifted through space like pathetic ghosts, still propelled by the lingering momentum of the bolts that had killed them. Unlike the Imperials, though, not all the purrgil had been eradicated. There were intermittent blurs of pseudomotion as the fleeing creatures attempted to jump to hyperspace, only to flicker back into existence seconds later, having traveled nowhere, their tentacles still glowing blue. 

Ezra felt sick. Why would anyone do something like this?

“Skies above…” Faro whispered, her voice echoing Ezra’s shock and disgust.

"Bring us around," Thrawn commanded, sounding unfazed by the scene before them. 

The shuttle turned, swinging about in a wide arc so that its nose was facing back towards the _Chimaera._ They were several degrees below the plane of the Star Destroyer, which gave Ezra a clear view of the heavy damage sustained by the ventral side of the ship. He strained, but couldn't see any sign of an enemy ship or starfighters. 

The purrgil had carried them into a vast, dark, empty part of the galaxy—presuming they were even still _in_ the galaxy. There were no nearby star systems or asteroids to hide behind, so either their attackers were cloaked, had fled, or, more likely, were concealed behind the massive bulk of the _Chimaera_. 

There was also no hint to whatever mechanism had pulled them from hyperspace. This was almost even _more_ puzzling. There were no nearby masses to have precipitated it naturally. And wouldn’t something like an interdictor cruiser be too big to hide behind the _Chimaera_? And everyone _knew_ that you couldn’t generate a cloaking field and a gravity well simultaneously. So why in sith hells were they stuck in realspace?!

"Fly in close to the hull," Thrawn ordered. "We'll come around from behind. Commodore Faro, signal the remaining shuttle pilots and have them draw the enemy's focus from the _Chimaera_ 's dorsal side."

He flicked a switch on the communications board. "Captain Hammerly, I suspect that there are at least two heavily armed mid-sized craft currently concealed by the _Chimaera_ ’s shadow, as well as larger transport of some sort. The larger craft is unlikely to be heavily armed, but may be well-shielded; our targets will be the gunships. We wish to draw their attention away from the _Chimaera_."

"Understood, sir," came Hammerly's voice from the gun turret.

Minutes later, they emerged from around the rear of the Star Destroyer _._

True to Thrawn's prediction, there were two gunships engaged in combat with the surviving _Lambdas_. They were each about the length of an Imperial light cruiser, but of an entirely foreign silhouette. If Imperial vessels were built along the lines of a planar triangle, then these ships were octahedrons, with a disorienting lack of directionality to their design. The shuttles were laughably outmatched—a mere fraction of their enemies’ size. It was only some quick, clever flying that kept them from falling immediate victim to the fighters’ guns. 

The enemy weapons were as strange as their ships. The lasers were much higher energy than anything used by the Empire or the Alliance, each white beam almost blinding in its intensity, and seemingly capable of erupting from any of the ships’ vertices. However, their heightened power seemed to come at the price of a tighter, more narrow focus that took nearly a minute to fully recharge. The weapons seemed oddly inefficient, especially against small, agile enemies like starfighters, or even the more ungainly _Lambda_ shuttles, which were far more likely to succumb to a broad, sweeping barrage than the precise sniper shots offered by the enemy lasers.

As their shuttle ascended into the plane of battle, the other ship whose presence Thrawn had predicted came into view. It was over half as large as the _Chimaera_ , approaching the size of a _Victory_ -class Star Destroyer, but lacked any of the sleek angles of those ships or even its own companions. Instead, it was an ugly, hulking tub of a thing, with a large, bloated belly and almost industrial-looking attachments affixed to its massive hull.

"Admiral…" Hammerly warned over the intercom, voice uneasy.

"Lieutenant Sxel, maintain distance. Captain Hammerly, focus your fire on the aft gunship."

She obeyed, unleashing the freighter’s lasers onto the more distant enemy vessel. The bizarrely-shaped ship broke off from its attack on the _Lambdas_ and began to move in closer to their shuttle. It moved unlike any capital ship Ezra had ever seen, seeming to simply reverse direction along a linear trajectory instead of executing the typical “U” maneuver. 

One of the vertices began to glow, energy accumulating in its tip, as the gunship loomed large ahead. Ezra really hoped that Thrawn had a plan, because, short of some _very_ good and _very_ well-hidden upgrades, there was no way the freighter’s shield could withstand even one hit by those high-energy beams. 

“On my mark, cut engines, pitch fifteen degrees, and engage forward thrusters at full power. Captain Hammerly, fire laser cannons forward at continuous burst, twenty seconds.”

The gunship filled the viewport.

Ezra swallowed nervously, clenching and unclenching his fists. His palms felt clammy. He wasn’t getting any warnings from the Force, but, then again, it hadn’t warned him about getting pulled out of hyperspace, either.

The glow of the vertex intensified. Ezra squeezed his eyes shut involuntarily.

“Mark!” Thrawn snapped. He reached out to brace himself against the back of the pilot’s seat. Beside him, Faro did the same.

Sxel and Hammerly leapt into action without a moment’s hesitation, and Ezra almost collided into the dashboard from the violence of the maneuver. The engines cut out, the nose of the ship tipped, and the force of the forward thrusters coupled with the recoil from the cannon caused the freighter to reverse direction, shooting back and up as the enemy gun fired uselessly into the space below it had formerly occupied.

“Direct your aim to the center of the top vertex, Captain,” Thrawn commanded. Was that a hint of satisfaction in his voice? Ezra wasn’t sure.

“With pleasure, sir,” Hammerly replied, and opened fire.

The enemy ship had already started to charge the vertex that pointed up at the freighter’s new position, but this proved to be its undoing. As Hammerly’s shots hit home with a precision that was, quite frankly, impressive for an Imperial, the enemy ship exploded.

_That...actually worked?_

Ezra was still not entirely sure he fully understood what had just happened. He blinked out at the newly-created field of debris as he attempted to make sense of the situation, but a movement in the bottom corner of the viewport caught his attention.

The _Chimaera,_ Ezra realized, was no longer in its original position. It had slowly but surely drifted forward along its initial trajectory. At first, he thought it was simply the residual inertial velocity from its exit from hyperspace and the energy blasts from behind. But, as he stared at it, Ezra realized that the ship was, in fact, unmistakably _accelerating_. He recalled Thrawn's mysterious detour to the auxiliary bridge during their evacuation. Suddenly Thrawn's orders to keep the gunships away from the abandoned _Chimaera_ made a fraction more sense.

The distraction seemed to be working. The remaining enemy ship was fully engaged in combat with the two _Lambdas_ and Thrawn's smuggler ship. It had thick hull plating, but didn't appear to have particularly strong energy shields. 

The utility of the narrow, high-energy lasers became clear when a crackling white ball of energy burst out from the surviving gunship's bottom vertex. It struck one of the _Lambdas_ and sent a wave of electricity erupting over the surface. The blaster must have overloaded the shuttle's systems, because the ship immediately went dark, sublight engines shutting off mid-maneuver. It continued moving forward in a straight line at constant velocity, coasting upon its residual momentum. The enemy ship quickly sent a targeted laser blast towards the _Lambda's_ primary power cells. The shot landed perfectly. The shuttle exploded in a flash of light and a spherical corona of debris.

As the battle progressed above it, the _Chimaera_ had nearly traveled its own length over, leaving in its wake a scattered trail of purrgil. Behind it, the huge barge began to move. Ezra desperately hoped that Thrawn’s assumption that it was unarmed held true. But the ship was not moving towards them, as Ezra initially feared, but towards the drifting purrgil. 

"Enemy transport engaging tractor beam!" Pyrondi warned, straightening up somewhat from her slump.

"Noted, Senior Lieutenant," Thrawn acknowledged. "Lieutenant Sxel, bring us in towards the _Chimaera's_ bow along vector two-point-nine. Commodore, signal the remaining shuttle to follow suit."

“Yes, sir.”

In the seconds before the shuttle turned, causing the enemy ship to no longer be visible through the viewport, Ezra caught a glimpse of its tractor beam snaring the massive, floating corpse of a purrgil. The tractor beam began to retract, tugging the purrgil along with it to where a large hatch was opening on the vessel’s hull to receive it.

Thrawn glanced down at the navigation console to Pyrondi’s right.

“Lieutenant, do you have a fix on our location?”

Pyrondi grimaced. “No, sir,” she said. “Wherever we are, it’s not on any of the Empire’s charts. I’d reckon that we’re probably in the Unknown Regions... if we’re even still in the galaxy at all. There certainly aren’t any systems showing up within ten parsecs of here. And the nav computer is indicating that we aren’t near any stable hyperlanes, either.”

“So even if we manage to destroy the cylinder, we’ll be forced to travel jump-by-jump,” Faro said grimly.

“Perhaps,” Thrawn said. “Perhaps not.”

Faro looked mystified, but didn’t ask for clarification. _Ezra_ was about to, but Thrawn continued: 

“Lieutenant Pyrondi, calculate a short jump, and be prepared to enter hyperspace on my signal.”

Pyrondi nodded and got to work. She had barely started when one of the sizzling, white electromagnetic discapacitating-bolts narrowly missed their port wing, and instead connected with the hull of the _Chimaera_ below them.

“Enemy approaching from behind! They’re gaining on us, sir!” Faro warned.

“Noted, Commodore. Lieutenant Sxel, be prepared to bring us around the _Chimaera’s_ nose at one sixty-five degrees. Captain Hammerly, once you have a clear shot from below, concentrate your fire on the _Chimaera’s_ auxiliary reactor. Commodore, relay those instructions to the _Lambda_ , as well.”

“You want me to fire on the _Chimaera_ , sir?” Hammerly verified over the intercom.

“Yes, Captain,” Thrawn confirmed. “Lieutenant, do you have the jump plotted?”

“Thirty more seconds, sir,” Pyrondi said.

“Excellent. Convey the coordinates to the _Lambda's_ pilot once the calculations are complete. Stand by to jump.”

The _Chimaera_ ’s nose grew larger in the viewport. Just when they were about to completely overtake it, Sxel swung the freighter around the fore of the Star Destroyer in a sharp, tight, U-turn. They were followed in the maneuver seconds later by the pilot of the remaining _Lambda_ shuttle. As they rounded the nose, Hammerly and the _Lambda’s_ gunner both opened fire on the auxiliary reactor located at the very tip of the _Chimaera_ ’s prow. The reactor ignited under the concentrated barrage as the two shuttles began to accelerate, desperately attempting to put distance between themselves and the pending explosion.

But the enemy gunship, so quick to change direction linearly, was not so adept at following a curved trajectory. Instead, it continued for a few, fatal seconds along the same, straight vector as the _Chimaera_. The nose of the _Chimaera_ exploded as the reactor overloaded, sending out a shockwave that Ezra could feel shake the rickety old freighter. 

The gunship abruptly changed its trajectory, accelerating a sharp ninety degrees up from the plane of the _Chimaera_ , and in doing so, managed to avoid the worst of the blast. 

However, it was caught in the second, larger blast that erupted mere seconds after.

In a blinding flash of light and an explosion that would have been deafening had there been any particles to carry the sound waves, the _Chimaera_ self-destructed.

The blast radius of a ship that was a kilometer-and-a-half long was massive. Ezra had no opportunity to relish the destruction of the ship that had caused him so much pain and suffering. The main reactor overloaded in a concussive detonation that expanded outward to instantly vaporize anything within its reach. The very bones of the freighter seemed to groan under the strain as Sxel pushed its engines to their limit, fighting for every ounce of acceleration he could eke out of it. As it seemed as though the wave of energy would overtake them regardless, Thrawn barked, “Now, Lieutenant!”

Pyrondi punched a button on the navigation terminal, and Ezra held his breath as the stars elongated before them. He still didn’t really understand what was preventing them from entering hyperspace, but whatever it was, he really, _really_ hoped that blowing up the _Chimaera_ had managed to circumvent it.

But to his relief, the starlines didn’t collapse back down into points. Instead, they brightened and blurred into the familiar blue of hyperspace. Ezra never expected to feel such a sense of relief at the sight of the familiar whirling vortex, but as it was, it felt like he was viewing one of the Seven Wonders of the Galaxy.

\---

They exited hyperspace only a few minutes later, reemerging once again into a black expanse that, minus the purrgil and the people shooting at them, looked no different from the one they had just fled.

They waited in anticipatory silence, everyone on edge, but no enemy ships materialized behind them.

Neither did the _Lambda_.

“No sign of any ships on our sensors, sir,” Faro announced grimly. “Friendlies or otherwise.”

“They received the coordinates, yes?” Hammerly asked, entering the cockpit.

“I got an acknowledgement,” Pyrondi confirmed. “Their hyperdrive must have malfunctioned, or they weren’t fast enough and got caught in the blast.”

“Perhaps,” Thrawn agreed. “However, it would not be wise for us to return for them. If they are lost in hyperspace, then there is nothing we can do. If they failed to enter it, then I fear they would not have survived the _Chimaera’s_ self-destruction.”

Ezra understood the logic behind it, but Thrawn’s explanation still felt unbearably cold. He would have done whatever it took to ensure the survival of his crewmates, no matter the odds—he _had_ done whatever it took. And it had landed him here. And yet, none of the other Imperials looked like they disagreed. Instead, they all seemed wearily resigned to the fact that they were all that remained of the _Chimaera’s_ crew.

“I’m more worried about _us_ , sir,” Faro admitted frankly, looking critically around the cabin.. “We don’t have the fuel or the supplies to get anywhere travelling jump-by-jump. And, no offense, sir, but you and the others look a mess.”

"No, we certainly cannot proceed jump-by-jump,” Thrawn confirmed. “Bridger will need to navigate us."

_What?_ Ezra looked sharply up at Thrawn, certain he must have misheard. Thrawn seemed to sense his disbelief, because he elaborated:

"I once witnessed Lord Vader use the Force to navigate a safe path through hyperspace. I understand that the Force grants a level of precognition that can be used to avoid obstacles."

Faro let out a choked cough, but didn’t comment.

Ezra thought about how Zeb had used the Force to navigate to Lira San. What Thrawn was suggesting sounded similar. But the path to Lira San had been embedded in Lasat history and tradition. When they had conducted the ritual, it had felt more like the magic of the Nightsisters of Dathomir than the way the Jedi used the Force. Ezra had no idea how you’d go about finding a path _without_ all the ceremonial trappings. And even then, Zeb had needed both his _and_ Kanan's support to complete the journey. Thrawn was asking Ezra, who was still recovering from an injury and hadn't eaten in five days to...what? Just close his eyes and let the Force guide his finger to a random point on the map?

He said as much out loud, but Thrawn simply looked pleased. "I understand that is the basic premise, yes. Although I could not say whether Lord Vader's eyes were closed at the time."

Had Thrawn just…made a _joke_? Clearly the hunger was making Ezra start to hallucinate. He still wasn’t convinced. In Ezra’s opinion, Thrawn had made it _abundantly_ clear that he had absolutely no understanding of the Force. And here he was, claiming some esoteric knowledge that even _Ezra_ had never heard of? Why should Ezra trust him on this?

"And Vader just…explained all this to you? Willingly?" Ezra asked suspiciously. "I've met him. He doesn't seem like the 'explaining' type."

"There were... extenuating circumstances."

Faro looked physically pained. There was definitely more to that story than Thrawn was letting on, and Ezra decided on the spot that, if he survived this, he would eventually get the truth out of him, one way or another.

"While you are not nearly as skilled a pilot nor as experienced in manipulating the Force as Lord Vader, I am certain that your lesser abilities will be adequate for the task."

Ezra could not _believe_ that Thrawn had the nerve to insult him even as he was asking for his help. He was about to say as much, when Faro cut in.

“Well, Bridger? Can you do it?”

There was an element of challenge to her voice.

Ezra squared his shoulders. He turned to face her full on, pointedly ignoring Thrawn. “If Vader could do it, how hard could it be?” he said with a confidence he didn’t fully feel.

He sidled past Thrawn to take a seat at the navigation console and reached for the controls. Although he’d never been aboard this particular model of ship, they weren’t too unfamiliar. If anything, they were closer to the controls of the _Ghost_ than anything of Imperial make. He thrust thoughts of his family from his mind. If he was going to attempt this, he needed to _concentrate_ , and thinking about what he had left behind wouldn’t help. He closed his eyes and attempted to ignore the weight of the Imperial gazes focused upon him. And, with a deep breath, Ezra opened his mind to the Force. 

“Let’s do this.”

* * *

Vah’nya knocked on Eli’s door shortly after the start of third shift. 

It was probably improper, but Eli didn’t have many friends inside the Chiss Ascendancy. He didn’t have many friends, _period._ Eli hadn’t found many crewmates willing to look past his Wild Space accent and a career spent serving as the aide to the only non-human in the Imperial Navy long enough to extend overtures of friendship. The senior officers of the _Chimaera_ had all shared a healthy level of respect and camaraderie, but Eli’s position had always prevented any of them from rising beyond coworker to become confidante. 

In truth, Thrawn had been his oldest, most important, and oftentimes _only_ friend. And now, apparently, Thrawn was _gone_. They were _all_ gone.

Wordlessly, Eli let her in and crumpled back down onto his bed. She politely took a seat at his small desk, concern writ large across her face.

“Admiral Ar’alani told me the news. I was worried about you.”

Eli tried to offer a weak smile to let her know he appreciated her concern, but he wasn’t sure how successful it was.

“I’m still...processing, I suppose,” he said after a minute. “After the incident with the Grysk, I knew it would be a _while_ before we saw each other again, but I wasn’t expecting that to be the _last_ time.”

“Do you think there’s a possibility he survived?” Vah’nya asked hesitantly. “I’ve heard that Mitth’raw’nuruodo…”

Eli _had_ considered it, when Ar’alani had first informed him that an Expansionary Fleet patrol had stumbled across the wreckage of the _Chimaera_ deep in the wilds of the Chaos. Her voice had been very carefully even, but Eli had been able to read her distress in the stiffness of her neck and the tension in her jaw. He still wasn’t entirely sure what complicated history bound Ar’alani and Thrawn together, but he knew for certain he was not alone in being blindsided by the report.

“If anyone could have found a way out, it would’ve been Thrawn,” he acknowledged. “But with the condition the scouts found the _Chimaera_ in...” Eli shook his head minutely. “And even if he had escaped in a shuttle...without a navigator, he would have been trapped out in the Chaos. Traveling jump-by-jump, he would have run out of fuel before he ever reached an inhabited planet.”

“And they’re certain the attackers took no prisoners?”

“Ar’alani said they found the remnants of Imperial escape pods. You wouldn’t shoot down escape pods if you were looking to take slaves or hostages. And they didn’t even leave any trace as to who they were.” Eli could only assume that the _Chimaera_ , so obviously a warship even when damaged, had provoked a “shoot first, ask questions never” response from whomever had bumbled into it.

“Then the Ascendancy has lost a great warrior,” Vah’nya pronounced sadly. “And you, Eli, a great friend.” She paused, choosing her next words carefully. "There's not many people we sky-walkers can trust with our secrets, and now the number is one fewer."

“Thrawn was certainly good at keeping secrets, I’ll give you that,” Eli said wryly. And now there were some secrets that Eli would never learn the truth of. Sometimes, it still seemed like he knew _nothing_ about Thrawn, despite living out of the man’s pocket for the better part of a decade.

Vah’nya didn’t seem to catch his sarcasm. 

It wasn’t that the concept of sarcasm was new to the Ascendency (the Chiss could, in fact, be _quite_ sarcastic), but merely that Eli’s Cheunh hadn’t quite reached the level where he was able to reliably convey the appropriate vocal nuance. It was probably for the best, anyway. Thrawn may have had a high tolerance for insubordination, but he was as unique in that regard as he was in any amongst the Chiss.

“There are many secrets among the Chiss,” Vah’nya said darkly. “And some of them are very dangerous. Although he had many enemies among the Syndicure, Mitth’raw’nuruodo was still a powerful ally. Without him, I fear that the Ascendancy will no longer be as safe for you and I.”

The comment was a chilling one, and it momentarily roused Eli from his grief. He had known, abstractly, from Thrawn’s own stories and from the murmured rumours that circulated amongst the crew of the _Steadfast_ , that Thrawn had amassed as many political enemies in the Ascendancy as he had in the Empire, but Eli had never contemplated their bearing upon his _own_ position in the Ascendancy.

He knew that Ar’alani, who trusted Thrawn implicitly, had resorted to leveraging her considerable reputation to secure him a place aboard her command ship, but he hadn’t considered the role _Thrawn’s_ recommendation had played in overcoming the admiralty’s xenophobia. 

“Thrawn sent me here for a reason,” Eli said. “And I intend to fulfill it.” He raised his head, his resolve growing, aware that his eyes were still red, and grateful that he knew Vah’nya would be tactful enough not to mention it. He looked at her steadily. “And I made you a promise. I won’t let anything happen to you. Or to any of the other sky-walkers.”

Vah’nya smiled sadly.

“I have faith in you, Eli Vanto. I only hope that it is enough.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> cw: the chimaera is attacked by a crew of purrgil-hunters loosely-based on historical (commercial) whalers. 
> 
> Does The Whale Die? yes.
> 
> also, i forgot to mention it before, but i've been posting illustrations and progress-updates on my tumblr [@gil-estel](https://gil-estel.tumblr.com)! you can also follow me on twitter @esteldraws


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